Respawning isn't THAT Awesome
by DevilForce Fanfiction
Summary: An unasked for adventure... a forced oddessey... The oft mocked self-insert with the oft despised "Author in the story". Alas, for these two, they are gifted no real power but thrust regardless into the doomed world to die. Again...and again...
1. Chapter 1

Truly it was just an average day for Ozpin. The children had been launched off the cliff, his coffee was hot, Glynda was glaring at him again. "And so begins another school year, Glynda," he said after a sip, giving his subordinate a sidelong glance. "The cameras are still working, yes?"

"Of course, sir," Glynda said, tapping away at her-

"Glynda...what exactly is that you're using? I can't tell if it's a tablet or an overly large scroll."

A loud VROOOP and a bright flash of light interrupted Glynda's reply, followed by a sudden screaming, not dissimilar to the alarmed screaming of Jaune Arc, who had just been launched off the cliff. The source of the screaming was a fat guy and, well, an even fatter guy. They went flying over the cliff, screaming the entire time.

"Well, that was...odd. What do you think just happened?"

"I believe that was two civilians falling off the cliff, sir," she replied, stepping to the edge and looking down, wincing. "And I believe they are now...dead..."

It was late afternoon when the unfortunate duo awoke, still intact.

"Huh. Nothing hurts. That doesn't seem right given that I fell off a cliff. Hey, big guy, are you alive? I hope you're alive, 'cause otherwise, I'm talking to a dead man."

The young man gave the other man a light nudge with his foot, hoping that the other person was also alive. "Please stop kicking me…" was the groaned reply.

"Oh thank God, you're alive. And stop whining, it was only one very light kick. Compared to what I'm guessing we should be feeling, it's nothing."

"Oh, great, so falling off a cliff wasn't a dream. Joy."

"Well, it could have been a dream. But since we both would have had to have the same dream, that doesn't seem very likely, does it? So I suppose the bigger question is, why are we alive?"

"Divine intervention?" Having finally stood up and dusted himself off, the larger fat man got a good look at the slightly slimmer one that had nudged him. "You, uh, look familiar."

"I get that a lot. I have one of those faces."

"Hmmm...give me a minute, and I'll put a name to it…" His arms now crossed, he began to tap his left foot.

"Well while you sit there trying to remember me, I'm gonna try to find a house or a cottage. Fuck, I'll take a hobo camp at this point. I just need some food and fire."

A roar of Grimm echoed in the distance, startling them both.

"Perhaps we should take this elsewhere!"

"That's the smartest thing you've said since I met you. Not that it was a very high bar."

"Ah ha! You're Atin! You fucking prick!"

"Okay...so you know me from over the internet, and you know me well enough to recognize my trademark sarcasm… Max?"

"Atin!"

"MAX!"

* * *

"-together as...Team JNPR. Lead by-" Ozpin was in the midst of announcing new teams by this point in the conversation between Atin and Max.

"NORA!"

"While your enthusiasm is appreciated, Ms. Valkyrie," Ozpin said, clearing his throat a bit, "I have already chosen Mr. Arc as your team leader."

"Okay!" Nora replied, apparently oblivious to her outburst.

* * *

"Wait, why are we in the middle of the forest? Much less standing in the same area?" Max pondered, looking around.

"While I am curious about that, I'm more concerned with the angry whatever that was. I think we should leave. Now. Quickly."

"Right, well...bit late for that...I suggest you don't turn around..."

"It's a bear, isn't it? It sure sounded like an angry bear."

"Well...would you believe me if I said it was an Ursa?"

"What, like RWBY? Have you been drinking?"

"Okay, would it make you feel better if I said it was just a bear?" But the only thing Max could hear was the sound of a terrified man crashing through the underbrush. "That son of a bitch!" The Ursa gave Max a once over, deciding to ignore him for the far more terrified Atin.

' _Shit, I shouldn't have ditched Max like that. What was I thinking?'_ An all too close angry roaring interrupted Atin's train of thought, promptly reminding him what he was thinking. ' _Oh, right, the giant angry bear. That's why I ditched him. Man, it got through him fast. And it didn't even stop to munch on him; it sounds like.'_ The bear sounded closer, far too close. ' _Why is this thing still following me? Okay, come on, tree, find a real climbable tree. Bears can't climb trees. I think.'_ Unfortunately for Atin his lack of depth perception tripped him up again, in the literal sense. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" He screamed, kicking out at the bear. Both feet connected solidly on the broad snout, and while it recoiled in shock, rather than pain, Atin finally got a good look at the bear. His final thought lamented the obvious outcome .' _Huh, I guess Max was right. It actually is an Ursa. And this honestly is RWBY. And I died to an Ursa. I didn't even get to meet anyone. What a shitty way to die.'_ The last thing he saw was a reflection of moonlight off the bone white claws, the last thing he heard was an angry roar.

Back with Max, he debated going after Atin, up until the scream and the roar. "Fuck...I should probably feel something here..." Picking any direction but the one the Ursa ran, he started walking, coming to the conclusion that he would eventually reach either civilization or meet his own end at the claws of a Grimm. Within minutes, he came upon a pack of Beowolves, staring blankly at them. "Well...this sucks." And thus were his last words as the Beowolves descended upon him.

* * *

"Have the remains of those two civilians been recovered, Glynda?" Ozpin asked from behind his desk, looking up from his paperwork.

Glynda, for her part, looked somewhat confused. "Well...we've found one body, yes. However, it wasn't at the base of the cliff, as we had previously seen."

"Oh?" Ozpin was intrigued if a bit confused now himself.

"Neither body was at the base of the cliff. Nor was the er...blood that I had initially spotted spreading from their corpses. Two separate tracks were found, going in different directions. One set simply ended, while the other came to...well...the remains of a body. There was barely anything left."

"And they didn't bring the remains back?"

"They insisted there wasn't much point. They instead focused on collecting blood samples from what remained, in the hopes of genetic identification." A _ding_ from her scroll alerted Glynda to a message from the forensics division at the Vale Police Department. "Sir...they have apparently, er, lost the blood. While it was under the microscope."

"...Come again?"

* * *

 _SCHLORPOP_

"I'm…I'm...I'm not dead. I'M NOT DEAD! YIPPEEEEEE!" said Atin, his voice getting progressively louder, before he remembered where he was. "Right, shit, Grimm infested forest. Shouting is not a good idea, moron. Okay, I need to get out here, before I die. Gotta get going!" He strode confidently forward, his foot getting snagged on something. "Ah yes, NOW I remember why I hate nature. Nature is an asshole. Stupid tree… roots….Why are these roots white and HOLY FUCK THIS A BODY." Atin began scrambling backward, shaking his foot, trying to dislodge it from the body, causing the corpse to jitter and shake in macabre mockery of life. His foot finally came free, and he continued scuttling backward on his hands, trying pointedly NOT to think about what was happening. This, of course, led to thinking it about, which, inevitably resulted in more screaming. One freshly dead body was one too many as far as he was concerned. He was taking a deep breath to continue his more than justified scream of horror when he heard _SCHLORPOP_ behind him, and he whipped his around, surprised to see Max behind him. He whipped his head around again, only to see nothing. "Max? How are you alive? I was just looking at you! I mean, your body. I think? It was hard to tell, it was all over the place."

Max himself was patting his body down, eyes wide. "I'm not dead. Why am I not dead? Those fucking things gutted me!"

"You died, too? I guess… I actually did die? Maybe? This is raising many questions, all of them disturbing. Are we gods? Is that what happened? Quick, try smiting a tree!"

"And how, in the actual fuck, do you suggest I go about doing that?"

"I dunno, try using lighting on it or something. Sunlight spear maybe?"

"Atin, I don't think deific powers are just randomly handed out to yahoos who don't go outdoors!"

"They _could_ be! You don't know what the criteria for godlike powers are! Now come on, try smiting something that _isn't_ me."

This particularly inane conversation was interrupted by rustling in the bushes, both of the fat men clamping their mouths shut. What emerged from the bushes in question wasn't something they'd expected, however. It was Peter Port, with what appeared to be an unconscious Boarbatusk slung over his back like a fish. He looked at the two, one eyebrow raised. "Not quite what I expected to find in a Grimm infested forest," were his first words to the intruders.

"Atin...Atin, that's Peter Port," Max deadpanned, poking Atin's shoulder with one hand, pointing at Port with the other.

"Really, and here I thought it was Santa."

"Alright, you can go fuck yourself now."

"No thanks, I'm not an exhibitionist."

A cough from Port grabbed their attention. "Perhaps it would be best if you didn't argue in the middle of a forest that is Grimm infested. As I have already mentioned," he said, beckoning at them. "Come along, let's get you out of here and in one piece."

"That's the best idea I've heard since we got here," Atin remarked, trying, unsuccessfully, to hold in his sarcasm.

"Wow, you weren't kidding about that sarcastic problem of yours," Max noted, following after Port.

"My mouth has gotten me more trouble than I like to remember. Course, it's talked me out of trouble, too, but it's usually trouble it got me into, to begin with." Atin remarked, shrugging his shoulders and shuddering at the memory of the freshman dance.

* * *

"I looked away for maybe six seconds, sir, and then it was just gone!" The man in uniform was gripping his hair while simultaneously resting his head on his hands, elbows on Ozpin's desk. He was leaned over, clearly frustrated with the sudden disappearance of forensics material.

Ozpin pinched the bridge of his nose, his glasses slightly pushed up. "So, we're missing at least one body, and now the only link we had to finding an identity has mysteriously vanished, seemingly into thin air," he said, listing off the two biggest bullet points of the day. "I have seen and heard much in my time, but I must admit, this is a tad strange."

The quiet sound of the elevator doors opening drew the attention of Glynda to the entrance of Ozpin's office. "Oh, Peter. What are you doing up here...with...why do you have a Boarbatusk on your back?" she asked.

"Well, you know, just needed to capture a Grimm for tomorrow's class, Glynda!" Port replied exuberantly, before clearing his throat, tone becoming serious. "However, that is not why I'm up here. After finding my class material, I heard a yell of, I believe it was, 'yippee,' further in. Rather close to the initiation launch site, as it were. I stumbled upon two young men and was wondering if perhaps they were simply new students who had failed initiation." Stepping to the side, Port beckoned Max and Atin forward.

"'Yippee?' Really, Atin?" Max asked, looking at his online friend.

"I'm sorry for expressing joy at being not dead. It's a good cause for celebration, ya know?" replied a slightly annoyed Atin.

"Now, hang on, I'm pretty sure we actually were dead. And then we weren't. I think. Still working out what happened."

A loud crack split the air, drawing everyone's attention to the stern-faced woman standing over by Ozpin's desk. "And just what were you two _doing_ in the Emerald Forest at night? While we're at it, do you know anything about those bodies?" Glynda's stern stare leveled itself at the two.

"Oh, yeah, that was us," was the answer from Max. "We think."

"We aren't quite sure yet. We might be gods. Or immortal. Not sure yet. Hey, do me a favor and chuck me out the window, huh? We need more tests," Atin interjected, looking a little too excited at the prospect of free fall, although it might have been pure manic energy from coming to grips with possible godhood.

"Okay, and what if it turns out we have limited lives?"

"Well, we have no way of knowing that. Sure maybe we have limited lives. But that doesn't matter since we have no way of knowing what that limit is. Easier to just assume it's infinite. More fun as well!"

"Do...do you hear yourself?"

The _clink_ of a coffee mug on a desk drew Max's attention to the headmaster of Beacon Academy. "Gentlemen," Ozpin began, waiting for Atin to take notice that he was also being addressed. "While enthusiasm is typically appreciated in a school environment, enthusiasm for taking your life is usually frowned upon. Now, I do not recognize either of you from the list of incoming students. Nor were you present at the opening ceremonies. Couple that with this alleged revelation that you both are the corpses we are searching for, and I am left to assume that you are either insane or at the very least, delusional."

"I am not insane! That lawyer proved NOTHING! I was found INNOCENT!" Atin interjected, quite perturbed at being called insane.

"I don't think that'll help our case, Atin," Max said, his arms crossed now.

"And I don't care. I am not insane, and don't appreciate mister coffee addict over there saying I am! Besides, if anything, the fact I'm in a fictional universe is more a sign of insanity than coming back to life after being mauled by an Ursa! ...I am really not helping, am I?" Atin trailed off into a contemplative silence while glaring at Ozpin.

"You're very much not," Ozpin calmly replied, chin resting on folded hands. "Now, we're going to call up some specialists to retrieve you. Psych evaluations will be done, and we will figure things out from there."

Max looked at Ozpin, meeting his stare. "You should send the police officer out. Because nothing says fun like allegedly insane men with the knowledge they really, _really_ shouldn't have," he told Ozpin, his voice level.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow but gave a nod to the officer, who left, scratching his head at the exchange that had just occurred. "I'll be taking my leave as well, then. Need to get the reference material caged up before it awakes," Port said, excusing himself to get in the elevator with the officer.

After the doors shut and the elevator lowered, the four remaining occupants stared at each other. "Right, they should be far enough now," Max noted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other occasionally.

"You mentioned the knowledge that two allegedly insane men shouldn't have. I'm curious to hear this," admitted Ozpin, leaning back in his chair.

"Well, for starters, we know there's a vault underneath the school," Max started, looking to Atin, while Ozpin simply looked on, no shock at this revelation.

"We know that the contents of said vault are kept secret from the overwhelming majority of people alive on this God forsaken apocalyptic hellhole of a rock," Atin hoped that would be enough to get some form of response to them. He didn't and was fairly certain Max would agree with him on this, that being locked up as crazy people was not on the agenda.

"Well, quite frankly, that seems a rather logical conclusion for anyone to come up with," was the reply, causing a sigh of frustration from Max.

"Of course. We have to get _specific_ , don't we? Because God _fucking_ forbid we not have to dredge up every last bit of detail we can remember over the course of the last four years," Max grumbled. "Okay, continuing on, then. We know what these contents are. One is a large machine, of Atlas make, used to, in theory, transfer Aura from one subject to the next. One of the topics in question is, of course, if you would, Atin?"

"Why, I do believe that if I'm not mistaken, and I'm most certainly not, it's a half dead Fall Maiden, attacked by a strange person or persons unknown, who happened to steal, conveniently enough, half of Amber's power. And you are now keeping a close on your students this year, hoping you can find a suitably talented young maiden to take her place. Preferably, she'll be young and impressionable enough that with some talk of the greater good, and what a noble sacrifice it is, right?" Atin leveled his most penetrating stare at the duo, for all the good it did, seething with righteous indignation.

"And on the subject of this year's incoming students, why don't we delve into one of your motivations, Headmaster Ozpin. Part of the reason you enrolled Ruby Rose, who we've presumably never met, was for her silver eyes, I am willing to bet. Oh, hey, a rhyme. Anyways. You're hoping she'll show the potential to be one of the silver-eyed warriors of legend, yeah? Spoiler alert, she does eventually show it."

By this point, Ozpin was sitting straighter, but so far, that was the only sign that what they had said was worth a response. "Interesting ideas, certainly," he said, nodding. "But that would be quite hard to prove, now wouldn't it?"

"But I'm sure _you've_ heard all kinds of crazy stories before, haven't you, Ms. Goodwitch. Students looking for a way out whatever trouble they've gotten themselves into. But you, being the good person you are, just send them on their way with a pat on the back, and a slap on the wrist, right?" A smug looking Atin had taken the time to wander over to the wall, and he always did enjoy a good lean. Helped you look like even more of a smug bastard, when done correctly.

"Now, at this point, you're either wondering if we're an enemy, fucking psychic or just really good at guessing extremely specific situations and making casual references to a conversation that happened in a sealed interrogation room sometime in the last two or three days," Max finished.

By this point, Glynda was holding her riding crop tightly, slowly twisting it, while Ozpin was leaning once again on his desk. "That is most certainly...something," he finally admitted, grabbing his cane and standing up. "Very specific knowledge, of specific events and people, casually doled out to a small audience of two, as if you were simply discussing the weather for the day. So, perhaps you, indeed, are not insane. However, that then leaves the question of whether you are an enemy or not. As well as how you even got hold of such information." Ozpin was now standing in front of Max, who had to crane his neck a bit to look Ozpin in the eye. It was odd for Max to have to look up to someone, being six foot two himself, but he wasn't letting this difference in height bother him.

"Hey, Coffee Junkie, I already covered that. Where we are from, you, the Maidens, Goodwitch, Ruby, and everyone else on this ball of dirt, are fictional. Fake, not real, a show on the internet, with all your dark secrets played out for our amusement," Atin remained leaning on the wall, doing his best to channel Qrow and his smug attitude, minus the heavy drinking.

"And the bit about you apparently being the two civilians we saw launch themselves off the cliff this morning, having most certainly died upon reaching the ground?" Ozpin asked.

"Hey, Atin, did you find a latch on that window yet?" Max asked.

Atin let out a long sigh of disappointment. "No. Of course not. They wouldn't just have latches on windows on a-Hey Ozpin how many floors up are we? Don't bother. It doesn't matter. The point is, it wouldn't be safe to have something as basic as a latch."

"Think 346 pounds at five miles could break it?"

"I doubt it. And even still, I'm quite sure either of them could stop us, what with the whole super powers thing. I suppose we best just find a cliff again. I doubt even my best sarcasm will annoy them enough to merit death. They run a school of hyperactive, melodramatic, angsty teenage superhumans after all."

"That is a fair point...oh, wait, I have a couple of my knives on me." Max walked over to the elevator doors, pulling out a pocket knife, slotting it in and pushing the doors apart just enough to get his fingers in. "Nice to know elevator doors are just as weak in Remnant as they are back home."

"Excuse me, young man, but what is it you think you're doing?" Ozpin asked, a pit forming in his stomach.

Max stepped away after pulling the doors open, holding his hands up in a surrender gesture. "Hey, look, I was just trying to prove a point, but clearly, you're not interested in that. Parents probably would have been real disappointed in me anyways, if they ever found out I'd considered jumping." Ozpin watched Max walk away from the now open elevator, relaxing just a bit.

Atin took this as his cue, making a beeline for the elevator, diving headfirst down the shaft, his parting words echoing back up, "My parents are disappointed in me already!"

Max slowly clapped. "Wow, not gonna lie, I don't think we could have planned that successfully," he said, looking at Ozpin and Glynda's horrified stares. "Improv speaks for itself. Do either of you have a stopwatch or a time telling device? I wanna figure out if there's some sorta time limit on this ability of ours."

"Your friend just jumped to his death!" Glynda shouted, moving towards the elevator. She got to the doors, looking down. "I...I don't see anything…"

"Is it just that far or is there not a body?"

Ozpin sat back at his desk, looking at his scroll. "7:25 is the current time, young Max," Ozpin noted, closing his eyes. "I do hope that this apparent immortality of yours holds up."

"Not as much as I do, I can assure you of that."

* * *

 **(A/N) Max: I don't even know what the fuck this was.**

 **Sneaky: A right mess, aye**

 **Max: Ignore him, he only did one sentence. The writers of this story are myself and a friend called Atin.**


	2. Chapter 2

An hour, on the dot, passed surprisingly quickly.

 _SCHLORPOP_

The noise caused all three people in the office to spin about, wondering what it could be.

"Kept you waiting, didn't I?" A smug looking Atin stood before them, intact and unharmed.

"...Alright, someone give me a gun, he deserves to be shot for that!" Max exclaimed.

"Spoilsport. But see, I was _right_. I came back. Wow, it's dark out there. Hey, how long was I, ya know, dead?" Atin wondered.

"Hour, on the dot. Wonder if that extends to anything else from death." Max had a contemplative voice, cradling his chin in his left hand.

"Let's not test that right now. I would rather not miss anything else. So, Coffee Junkie, still think we're crazy?" wandering over to wall behind Ozpin's desk, he resumed his lean.

"I may need something a bit harder than coffee," was the admittance from the headmaster. "So, if this past hour has been any indication, you both appear to be incapable of dying. Time limit or no, that should, quite frankly, be impossible. Not only that, you are also armed with knowledge that is quite dangerous, whether in the right or wrong hands. Am I correct in assuming you also hold knowledge that would prove beneficial to us?"

"That we do," replied Max. "For example, the person who lead the attack on Amber is named-" Max suddenly clutched his stomach, eyes bulging, his cheeks soon following. He appeared to be convulsing, slowly calming down, appearing to swallow something. "Ugh..."

"Well, since I suppose my friend here seems like he'll be _redecorating_ your office, I'll tell you. The girl who attacked Amber is named-" Atin fell to one knee, also clutching his stomach, a hand over his mouth, eyes wide with disbelief, he snatched up Ozpin's trash can, pulling his hand away from his face, letting out stream of vomit. "Gross...what the fuck was that?" He demanded of no one in particular.

"Urgh...Atin, I'm starting to think there may be a couple rules we have to follow…" Max was now squatting, his head between his knees as he let the feeling of nausea pass. "Which isn't very fair, seeing as we were presumably yanked here against our will."

"RULES? RULES?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME! I swear, when I find out who did this, I'll kill them. And if they come back, I'll do it again. Putting rules on this _ruins_ the fun." Atin's voice reverberated around the room, mostly because he was still hunched over Ozpin's garbage can.

"Are you two okay?" Glynda asked, looking concerned for the two.

"Not, urgh, not really," answered Max. "It looks like we can't share a rather important piece of information with you, yet. Which makes things... **urp**...a bit difficult."

"This is… upsetting. Hey, wait the guy who fought Ruby, you know his name is Roman Torchwick, right?" Atin said, leaning back from the trash can, relived he was able to get the words out.

"Of course we do," Ozpin replied. "He's well known through Vale as a criminal."

"Well that's just _wonderful_ Max. WE CAN SPOIL THINGS THEY ALREADY KNOW! I suppose the rule is there to make us get involved and make a difference. Fuck that, I don't want to be slaughtered, that _hurts_. At least cracking my skull open, I don't have to _feel_ it!" Atin raged at whoever down this to him.

"Um...okay, I _really_ don't like that idea. Seriously, has whoever sent us here even _seen_ us?" Max gestured to his fat and then at Atin.

"Well, maybe I'm supposed to use my, well I can't call it a silver tongue, more like an acid one, to make a difference. And you can...I dunno, be optimistic?" Atin said, sitting on the floor, back against the wall.

"Oh, sure, I have to be optimistic, after the end of volume fucking THREE?!"

"Cheer up buttercup, maybe it won't get that bad. Maybe we can make a difference through hard work and clever thinking! While I'm at it, maybe we can even learn some valuable lessons about friendship!" Atin's head thumped on the glass, making it quite clear how likely he thought that was.

"First off, don't call me that. Second, you might have a point, actually...the next plot relevant point...well...hmmm." Max sat down on the floor, his legs crossing. During this exchange, Ozpin and Glynda had simply watched and listened. "Okay, so, maybe we do have to get involved. That means that, at the very least, we can tell them when something relevant is about to happen. The more things we mess with, presumably the bigger the butterfly effect. There's also subplots to think about."

"Subplots you say….perhaps we can mess with the ships? For our own enjoyment, of course."

Atin seemed to perk up a little at thought of annoying vast amounts of people .

"What do ships have to do with this?" Glynda asked.

She went unanswered as Max continued to think out loud. "Yeah, yeah, sure, just don't mess things up too badly, Atin. So, if we can operate under what I believe to be a logical assumption, we can probably avoid a good chunk of the bad shit in volume 3. We become violently ill when we attempt to disclose main plot relevant information that has yet to be revealed, it seems. Our only option, then, would be to try and be as near to the action as possible to give the quickest updates possible. But what determines what's relevant and what's not?"

"Hell if I know. I'm not keen to investigate either, if it means more of _that."_ Atin gestured towards the now ruined garbage can.

"You two are oddly calm about all of this," noted Glynda, the two turning their attention towards her finally.

"Well, I mean, why wouldn't we be? We have _literally_ died. We know the most important things that are going to happen. Also, might be more than a little shock." Atin slowly stood up, taking in comfort in the solidity of the wall.

Max looked at the ground for a bit, then looked back up to Ozpin. "So, uh, can we stay here? I dunno, maybe work for room and board?" he asked. "Basic janitorial work or something?"

"We could also do like TA work. Make copies, grade papers, that kind of stuff." A displeased Atin commented, having already had his fill of janitorial work.

Ozpin closed his eyes in thought, leaving the room in complete silence for the moment. Upon reaching a decision, he opened his eyes, looking from Max to Atin and then to Glynda. "I suppose we probably could. A trial period, of sorts, to ascertain if you will be able to give us this information that may determine the very course of the future," the headmaster said. "Glynda, have we any spare rooms we can put them in for the time being?"

Glynda consulted her tablet, her eyebrows raising in surprise, telling them, "Yes, there happens to be an open suite of rooms... at the end of the hall from team RWBY."

"That's...oddly convenient," Max noted.

"Almost like someone _wanted_ us near us them. But I'm sure it's just a coincidence." Atin chimed in, once again failing to reign in his sarcasm.

"Well, there we have it, gentlemen," Ozpin said. "We'll look into getting you scrolls as faculty members and see how things go from here on out."

"Oh, also we're gonna need some help. With…. pretty much everything. We know basically nothing about this world. Also, we don't exist here. No bank accounts, no phones, no _money_ , no clothes. Apparently being a wisdom dispensing Oracle only has the perk of not dying. Hey Max, if we starved to death, would we come back still starving?" Atin trailed off, looking contemplative.

"I dunno, Atin, how about you take three weeks to find out?" Max replied.

"Ask a legitimate question, get an asshole answer. I thought that was my job." He would never admit it, but Atin was overjoyed that Max was embracing the glorious path of sarcasm.

* * *

 _BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEEEEEEEEEP_

A constant beeping pervaded the separate rooms of the Beacon's newest faculty members.

"What is that noise…. It sounds like a cartoonishly stereotypical alarm clock, something I don't have. Why is my bed smaller? Why isn't the sun shining in through the rear facing window _directly into my fucking eye_ like it usually does. Most importantly, why am I talking out loud?" Atin quickly realized that in addition to not stopping, the beeping was not located in his room.

"Turn off the fucking alarm, asshole!" came a shout from Max.

"You fucking turn it off, it's not mine!" Atin shouted back.

"Bullshit, it's not yours!"

Atin slammed open the door of his room, taking in the room he was too tired to pay much attention to last night. It was an apartment not unlike the one he had lived in until only two years before. It had what he assumed was a full kitchen, a large fridge, a small sink, and an even smaller dishwasher. Separated from the kitchen by a waist high wall which doubled as the countertop, was a small living room, with a couch that could generously be called _used_ and small table with two rather uncomfortable, if solid looking chairs. The final piece to this area was a thirty-two inch flat screen television with a piece of paper with 'Out Of Order' written out on it, taped over the screen, the tv itself resting on a dusty wooden television stand. He turned his attention to the middle of the floor, where the alarm clock was resting. The bright red numbers read '6:30 AM'. A note was taped to the top over the off function.

One of the other three doors opened to reveal Max, hair disheveled. "The fuck is that?" he asked, yawning.

"'Your day starts in 30 minutes, be ready when I get here.' And it's signed by 'Your New Boss'. Dibs on the first shower!" Suiting actions to words, Atin dashed towards what he hoped was the bathroom.

Max shrugged, walking back into the bedroom he had initially come from. He decided to go into the drawers and was surprised to find clothing. "When...when were these put in here?"

Minutes later, both now showered and dressed, Atin was sitting on the couch, enjoying the feeling of wearing clothes that hadn't been slept in. "Man, these fit great! Wait...how did they get our sizes? We never got measured, and we went straight to sleep. Or, at least I did. Did you hear anyone come in Max?"

"No. I didn't." Max himself was sitting at the table, just staring at the wall.

A series of sharp knocks at the door interrupted Atin's train of thought. "Well, that's probably our new boss. Time to disappoint them!" Atin did his best to put on a chipper smile, despite the early morning hour. He swung the door open, to see Goodwitch standing there, looking as stern as ever.

Max walked over to greet her. "Morning." He suddenly squinted his eyes a bit, leaning forward slightly. "Um, did you sleep last night? You look a bit, er, tired."

Glynda pulled out two scrolls, handing one to each of the young men. "There was quite a bit of paperwork to be done in order to have you enrolled as on call faculty. These scrolls will act as keys for you in the school. Ozpin's and my own numbers are pre-programmed in. A map has also been added, to aid you in navigating the school," was her reply. She quickly turned on her heel. "Come along, now. For today, we shall be splitting you two to assist two of our more well known faculty members in their classes, to introduce you all to the students. Best to get it done now rather than later, so as to avoid confusion among the student body."

"Well, makes sense I guess. Sooooo who am I working with? And what am I supposed to do? I'm used to just sitting around an office, grading papers, making copies, getting coffee. That kind of stuff." Atin, while not thrilled at having to work, at least it was easy. He hoped.

"I'll let you two figure that out. The faculty in question are Peter Port, in charge of Grimm studies and who you met last night, and Bartholomew Oobleck, the current history and politics teacher."

"Why? Why would you do that to us? We know what they're like. Why are you sticking us with the comedic relief?" Atin's face began to lose its chipper demeanor, realizing what he was in for.

"It's not that bad, Atin. If you want, I'll help Port in his class," Max offered, shrugging.

"Sure. I suppose I can deal with Oobleck. I mean, what's the worst that can happen?" Atin hoped it was nothing.

Max facepalmed, shaking his head. "Anything horrible that happens today is completely and one hundred percent your fault now."

"Oh come on. It's not like this a story. Saying that doesn't actually cause bad things to happen, Max!" At least, Atin hoped that was the case.

Max opened his scroll, looking at the map, giving a low whistle. "Wow, surprisingly user friendly." Navigating through the scroll's functions was surprisingly simple, the map of the school soon on his screen. "Huh. Their rooms aren't too far apart. This school isn't anywhere near as large as I figured it would be, though." His scroll suddenly dinged, a notification in one of the corners. He tapped it, opening up what appeared to be an inbox of messages. "Student registry? You're just giving that to us?"

"Why wouldn't they? After all, we are now employed by Beacon, a highly respected teaching institution. It's not like they would just hire anyone who walked in with a crazy story and no discernible combat or teaching skills." Atin didn't even bother to try and hide the sarcasm.

"Unusual circumstances call for unusual solutions, I find," Glynda replied.

"Why are the students' individual measurements in here?" Max suddenly asked, eyebrow raised. "Do you just stick the medical records in with the registry?"

"It's a combat school. Easy access to things like blood types is probably a good precaution for the teachers. Along with medicinal allergies, prior medical history, all that stuff is really important for proper medical treatment, in the field or out of it," Atin interjected distractedly, busing flipping through the student directory.

"Ah, alright, good point." Max conceded the point, bringing his map back up. "Alright, guess I'll go meet Professor Port before class gets going."


	3. Chapter 3

Max cradled his right hand, cringing after shaking hands with Peter Port. "Terribly sorry, lad," Peter said, rubbing the back of his head. "Your lack of aura temporarily slipped my mind..."

Max waved the comment off with his left hand. "Eh, it'll probably be good in about an hour. I think. Hurts like hell, but it'll be a good test for mine and Atin's circumstances," was the fat man's reply. "Anyways, as was already established, I'm one of two on-call Teaching Assistants. Name is Max Force. Obviously, you can just call me Max."

"Noted, Max. However, during class, I would prefer that you address me as Professor Port and in return, I shall refer to you as Mr. Force."

"Understood, sir."

"Now then, we have about an hour or so. The subject I teach is Grimm Studies and the class' title is quite self-explanatory. You'll be assisting in the usual things. Handing out assignments, assisting in grading said assignments, keeping an eye on the interactive curriculum, and keeping an eye on the class during lectures, while occasionally participating in the lecture itself. Simple enough, yes?" Port had moved to the desk, shuffling around papers on top of it.

"Uh, yeah, sounds simple enough, but one thing caught my attention." Max's eyes looked over to the cage in the corner. "Well, two, actually. One is that cage over there. The second is the third item on that list. Interactive curriculum?"

"Well, this is Grimm Studies. There will be occasions where a Grimm will be needed for a lecture or demonstration. The cage is one of several I use when such an occasion is called for. Today is such a day, as well, so you will be expected to keep an eye on the cage as well today, while keeping an eye on the students."

"Uh huh. Right. That sounds interesting. What kind of behavior should I be stopping in the classroom?" Max made sure to step to the side of Peter opposite the cage. His mind recalled the episode in which he was fairly certain he now found himself, but he wasn't risking the off chance of the Boarbatusk escaping and tearing into him. "Just make sure they aren't disruptive or loud? Or will I need to call them out if they aren't paying attention?"

"No, no, there will be no need to force their focus back to the task at hand just yet. I'm quite used to students being inattentive during the first few lectures with each batch of first-years. Just make sure they aren't disruptive." Peter stood up straight, holding out a small textbook to Max, looking up slightly to look him in the eye. "I suggest you start reading this at your earliest convenience. It's a good primer on what we know of Grimm so far. It wouldn't do for a Teaching Assistant to not have at least the cursory knowledge in this class."

Max accepted the textbook, walking towards a chair that had apparently brought in for him. "I'll just get started on this, then, seeing as we still have some time to kill."

One hour later, Max's right hand was indeed as good as new and minutes after, the classroom door was opened. As students filed in, there were a number of confused glances towards his general direction. Once it appeared all students were present, Peter gave a cough, catching Max's attention, who stood up and walked to the front of the classroom. "Good morning, students, and welcome to Grimm Studies!" the portly man started, now addressing the class. "Before we begin today, I felt it prudent we have a quick introduction for one of two Teaching Assistants we have hired for the year. Mr. Force, if you would?"

"G'morning. My name is Max Force, you can call me Max, Force, Mr. Max, Mr. Force, whatever, so long as it isn't insulting. I look forward to working with you kids. Try to stay awake," Max introduced himself, slowly ambling back towards his chair and taking a seat once more beside the desk.

Peter gave a nod, clearing his throat. "Monsters! Demons…" Peter began his lines from the show, the exact same as Max remembered them.

Keeping an ear on Peter's lesson, Max's eyes swept over the room, noting that a number of students were already looking drowsy in just a few minutes. As Peter's story droned on, Max made some notes about the events and useful tidbits in there. Halfway through the class, he noticed Team RWBY, specifically young Ruby Rose, doodling. Remembering what would occur very shortly, he grabbed the textbook Peter had given him, slowly raising it above the desk.

"With the beast in my sights, I took the shot!" Peter suddenly exclaimed, a slight pause for effect in place.

' _Perfect timing,'_ Max thought to himself, slamming the textbook down as hard as he could onto the desk. A sharp _CRACK_ jolted some kids back to the waking world, while the rest looked at the TA. Peter himself turned to look at Max, an eyebrow raised. "Ah, sorry, sorry," Max said with a light chuckle. "I just figured a bit of immersion would help with the story, maybe wake up some of our more nap-inclined students. Help focus wandering minds and avert possible disturbances." With that last bit, Max made a not so subtle nod in Ruby's direction.

While Ruby sheepishly put her pencil and paper down, Peter rubbed at his chin before giving a nod, resuming his story without missing a beat, continuing, "As I was saying, after taking the shot, the beast retreated further into the woods." The story continued for another ten or so minutes, Peter wrapping it all up with a question that Max knew wasn't in the show. "Now, some of you may be asking what the moral of this story could possibly be. Mr. Force, perhaps you'd like to take a crack at it?"

Max stood up, walking over to Peter's side. "Is the moral something other than you being terrifyingly strong?" he asked with a smile, Peter chuckling, but he shook his head. "Man, tough crowd," Max noted of the students, rubbing the back of his neck. "Little humor won't kill you. Anyways, seeing that some of you rolled your eyes at the end of the story, and yes, I _did_ catch that, there does appear to be some confusion at the fact that there was a point to Professor Port's story." Max looked around the classroom. "Would anyone else like to take a guess before I explain it?" A hand raised slowly, Max looking towards its owner. "Yes, Ms. Belladonna?"

"That a huntsman or huntress must be dependable," was the amber-eyed student's answer. "The general populace depend on hunters for protection. They need to know that they can trust us to do our jobs."

"That's certainly one part of it, yes. Dependability is extremely important as a trait. Do keep in mind that being dependable is just as important among yourselves, however, and not just for the image the general public has of hunters." Max nodded in approval, scanning the room once more. "How about another volunteer?" When no one else raised their hand, Max sighed, shaking his head. "Alright, guess I'll actually have to do my job proper now. There were a handful of traits that a hunter should have. A hunter should be honorable, strategic, well-educated, and wise, on top of being dependable." There were a number of confused faces at this. Max nodded to another raised hand. "Ms. Nikhos, you have a question?"

"Mr. Force, while I do understand the dependability and could perhaps see the strategic trait in the story, where do you get the other traits from?" Pyrrha asked, lowering her hand.

"Let's first look at the well-educated trait, then. Now, when you hear well-educated, you likely think of academics, yes?" Nods from around the classroom. "Well, when I hear well-educated, I hear just that. Well-educated. Perhaps that education involves booksmarts, perhaps it involves streetsmarts. To me, someone who is well-educated is someone who has experience, in one thing or another. Wisdom is what allows one to use that experience effectively. You could even argue that being wise may lead to being strategic." Max took a glance at Peter, who had stayed silent throughout this time, simply observing Max. When no effort was made to stop him, Max continued. "It is with his education that Professor Port devised a plan to capture the Beowulf. His strategy was, in itself, a showing of his wisdom, his ability to use his experiences and knowledge to his advantage." Some of the students had a look of understanding by this point, realization dawning around the room. "As for the honorable bit, well...Professor Port owned up to his mistake. He left the village's entry gate open, which allowed the Beowulf to get in. Rather than hiding this fact or simply ignoring it in the hopes no one would even consider investigating it, he immediately stepped forward, admitting to his involvement in the issue and volunteered to fix it as penance."

"Well spoken, Mr. Force," Peter finally spoke. "Now, there is one last bit to today's lesson. Mr. Force, if you'd be so kind as to pick a student to assist us in a demonstration?" Peter gave a subtle gesture of his head towards the cage.

"Right, just one question. Are firearms allowed in the classroom setting?"

"Only if it is small caliber."

"Thank you for the clarification." Max looked at the students, trying to make a decision. _'I could always let Weiss do it, seeing as this is supposed to be a big turning point in the relationship between her and Ruby...or I could see how much I can fuck with the timeline!'_ Max made his choice. "Mr. Lie Ren, would you mind?" Just a few minutes later, Max and Peter stood to either side of the cage, while Ren stood across from it, holding his weapons ready.

"Now, let the match, begin!" And with that, Peter cut the lock off the cage with his axe, the door falling forward to reveal the very same Boarbatusk Max and Atin had seen over Peter's shoulder just the night before.

As the Grimm charged at Lie Ren, Max thought to himself, _'I wonder how Atin's doing right now.'_

* * *

Atin wandered through the halls of Beacon, confused as hell. "I'm gonna be late at this rate. This isn't gonna be a good first impression for me. Where the hell is this classroom?" he wondered aloud. He wandered around some more, growing more irate and worried with the passing time. His Scroll began vibrating, the alarm he had set for fifteen minutes before class going off. Pulling the Scroll from his pocket he shut off the alarm, feeling that he had forgotten something important. "I have map. On the Scroll. Stupid, stupid, stupid." He continued berating himself, while pulling up the map of the school. After a brief moment of confusion, he managed to read the small font, resolving to find a way to make it larger. After he got through the first class with Oobleck. He started running through the halls, not wanting to be late on the first day.

' _Aw crap, only a couple of minutes before class starts. Hope no-one showed up early to class,_ ' he thought to himself, trying to control his breathing as he headed into the classroom

"Excuse me, professor? I'm one of the new TA's they hired this year. If you'll point me to master sheets and the copy room, I'll get started, since I assume you don't have any papers that need grading yet." Atin said as he entered the room. As he looked around the room, he saw that it looked, unsurprisingly, just like the show. It looked more like Oobleck's personal storage room that he coincidentally taught class in.

A familiar rapid fire voice emerged from behind of the stacks of paper "Young man, what on Remnant are you talking about? I have already finished making copies of all the assignments for the coming year!" Oobleck's voice came from somewhere ahead of Atin, or at least he thought it did.

"Already finished for the year? Guess I shouldn't really be surprised, this is Oobleck i'm talking to." Atin said to himself under his breath. "Then I'm just going to grade the papers for the rest of the year, sir?"

"Of course not! I can get my grading much faster than you can!" said Oobleck's voice, now sounding like it was coming from _behind_ Atin.

"Well if I'm not making copies or grading, then what am I supposed do?" ' _Where the hell is he? This is getting ridiculous!'_ Atin was maintaining a respectful demeanor, but only just, as he grew more and more upset, both with not being able to seethe man, and being out of breath from his run to get there on time.

He heard the sound of the door opening behind him, and a familiar voice called out "Professor, my name is Weiss Schnee, I wanted to come early and introduce my-, who are you?" Weiss asked, staring at Atin.

"I'm Atin, nice to meet you Miss Schnee." Atin extended his hand, fully expecting the ice queen of Beacon to ignore it.

"I didn't think another student would have the same idea as me, to come early and meet the Professor. Why aren't you wearing the uniform? For that matter, how did someone so clearly out shape get into Beacon in the first place?" Weiss glared at him, ignoring the outstretched hand, and the connotation of friendship that went with it.

"There is a very simple answer to alllll those questions. I. Am. Not. A. Student." Atin paused on the last few words, to make the emphasis very clear.

"I am, for your information, one of the Teacher Assistants. We do the things teachers don't have time for, like grading papers," Atin said, because while _he_ knew that Oobleck wasn't going to have him grade anything, _Weiss_ certainly didn't.

Weiss's face became an interesting shade of crimson, as she began to stammer out a series of incomplete sentences "OH! I'm, that is to say, I didn't mean to, I'm so sorry Sir! I just had no idea that someone like you-"

"Someone like me? Whatever do you mean by that Miss Schnee? Do you have any further comments about my appearance? Or maybe you'd like to insult my fitness again? How about a four eyes joke? I haven't heard one of those in a while," Atin interrupted her, enjoying making her suffer a little.

"Mister Atin, I told you that I would be doing all the grading this year, and I was about to explain that I simply have very little use for you," Oobleck interjected, seeming to appear from nowhere in a blur, at the front of the room.

"So he isn't going to be grading our papers? Then why you did you tell me that you were! Are you even a TA?" Weiss angrily rounded on Atin, her eyes filled with anger.

"You should have seen the look on your face! You went from judgy to brown nose so fast, i was afraid you were going to give yourself whiplash! Ahhhhhh, I needed a good laugh. But I assure you, I am in fact a TA. I did it to teach a lesson. As to what that lesson was, well I'll leave that up to you." Atin smirked to himself, feeling at least for a few moments, like his old self and that everything was normal.

"Miss Schnee, please take your seat, class is about to begin. I would appreciate it if you did not insult members of the Faculty, no matter your personal opinion of them." Oobleck once again zipped to the front of the room, greeting the students as they entered.

"Mister Atin, if you would please hand out the syllabi to the students!" Oobleck said loudly from the front of the room.

* * *

Hours later, Max and Atin were sitting in their common room, chatting. "Not so bad of a first day," Max was saying. "Port's lessons aren't that bad, surprisingly. There's some really useful info hidden in those stories of his."

"I was a gopher. I handed out papers. I'm pretty sure I could train a monkey to do that job for me. Is that racist in this world? I hope not," Atin said, finding himself strangely hoping for actual work to do, at least so he wasn't bored out of his mind. As he was contemplating whether he wanted to deal with "racist things to say to Faunus" in his search history, his scroll vibrated.

"Hey Max, it looks like we have our first actual job as TA's. You probably aren't gonna like this much."

Max opened his own scroll, replying, "Can't be that bad." After reading the message, however, his mind was quickly changed. "Oh...well, this would be the point where I make a bad joke about walking out the window. Shame I'd just come back."

"We can't do this. Neither of us is in anyway qualified to do! This is a terrible idea!" Atin said, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

"Atin, why in the fuck does he mention us being 'All-Knowing Oracles' as a reason for this decision? We never told him we were anything like that! Did you tell him that when I wasn't looking? Why would you do that?!"

"Because ya know what? 'All-Knowing Oracle' seemed like a less crazy explanation than 'We just kinda wound up here from another dimension and we have zero idea how'. That's why! At least this way they might listen to us!"

Max opened his mouth, closed it, looked down, and finally nodded. "Alright, that's a fair point. Might have just gotten us a much bigger role than I would have been comfortable with, but still a fair point."

"Okay, I mean, what's the worst that can happen? I mean, if you ignore our complete lack of qualifications for teaching, teambuilding, and group problem solving."

"...I'll just go make some cookies...those might help…"


	4. Chapter 4

"'After much discussion with Miss Goodwitch, we have decided to turn the problem over to you, our 'All-Knowing Oracles' to help solve some of the.. personal problems with team RWBY.'"

"What the hell is Ozpin thinking. How on earth does Oracle mean 'behavioral group therapists?' I can't believe that Glynda is sanctioning this." Atin paced back and forth around the room, hands moving animatedly to give weight to his ranting.

"I dunno, maybe they took it at face value and assumed we'd know exactly what to say to fix these problems," Max replied, checking the timer on their small oven. "It'd be a fair assumption to make when you hear the term 'all-knowing.' Which is why we won't be throwing that term around anymore."

"Look, I admit I should not have gone with Oracle. But I'm still operating on earth, where people know the cautionary tale of Delphi. I will not accept fault for this world not having proper warning labels about Oracles." Atin desperately tried to figure out what they were going to do about this, while enjoying a favorite pastime of the internet, ranting and blaming other people.

With a light _ding_ , the timer went off and Max pulled a tray of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. "Look, it can't be that bad. You know, never mind, who am I kidding? But come on, it should be fine..sort of. We'll just go in, be our usual blunt selves. Maybe try a little bit of tact at the start. But this is gonna have to be solved one way or the other...though I find it a bit strange that they've already identified internal problems within teams on just the first day. How much observation and psychoanalysis do they do with first years to be able to weed this stuff out within just seventy-two hours?"

"Those cookies actually smell good. How long have you been able to bake? Also, I have no idea Max. For all we know they go through a rigorous battery of psychological testing before they come here, to identify problems. Or maybe they have been under observation for years. Ozpin is basically running the Illuminati here. They even have a dark magical secret to protect. Point is, they know, and we have to get Weiss to stop being an ice queen, Blake to stop being paranoid and closed off, and Ruby being an overactive ball of sugar. Maybe get Yang to stop with the puns. All of this has to be accomplished with two of the _least_ qualified people on this, or any other, ball of dirt."

"Could have been worse. Could have been anyone else in our little circle of friends. Let's be honest, aside from the drunkard when he's actually drunk, we're probably the best equipped in that group for this kind of thing."

"You say that as if isn't horribly alarming."

"Okay, cookie's are sealed in the plastic container, in the bag, let's go down the hall. And knock on the door of four young women. Who could kill us...Atin, help, I'm this close to talking myself out of this…"

"It probably won't hurt for long if that's any consolation. Oh, and we will come back. Although that might to lead bigger problems if one of them kills us, like them questioning their sanity, or accusing us of being demons."

"Just come on," Max said, opening the door to enter the hallway.

"Sure, sure, lets just go knock on the door of four girls. Who can kill us. One of whom might, just might, be slightly, sort of, kinda massively annoyed at me for jerking her chain. Come to think of it, I'll let you go first, you have cookies."

As Atin closed the door, Max turned to him. "What the fuck did you do?"

"Weiss was being…well she was being season one Weiss. So I made her think that she had insulted the TA who would have been grading their papers. She deserved it. She insulted my clothes, and my weight, after I offered my hand in friendship."

Max rolled his eyes, muttering something under his breath. Then, with a sigh, he turned back around, walking just a few yards down the hall to knock on Team RWBY's door. "Let's hope this goes well," he said, finally putting knuckles to wood.

The door opened to reveal Ruby Rose in her sleepwear. "Uh...Mr. Max? Mr. Atin? What are you two doing here?" she asked. Further in, the heads of the rest of Team RWBY could be seen poking into view.

"Well, believe it or not, Miss Rose, this is a part of our job...apparently." Max rubbed the back of his head, holding up the paper bag he'd grabbed for the container of cookies. "I brought some fresh cookies in the hopes it would make this less awkward."

"I mean, I personally think that this is gonna be awkward no matter what we do, and baked goods aren't going to help, especially with someone as judgy as Ice Queen over there. Ummmm, side note, I'm fairly sure that those beds would not pass OSHA safety standards. At all. Ever."

Ignoring the indignant squawk from Weiss in the background, Ruby looked at the two, her head tilted in confusion. "What's OSHA?" she asked.

"Just ignore him, he rambles a lot," Max said, waving the question off. "May we?" Ruby stepped aside, Max and Atin walking into the room. "Mind if I take a seat?" He pointed to the chair at the desk beside the door.

"Um, sure," Ruby answered nervously, slowly closing the door.

Atin simply leaned against the wall, being of the mind that a good lean was almost as refreshing as sitting. No one could tell you "no" about leaning either, you just did it. "So, we are here to talk about your team's issues. Its many, many issues. Shall we start at the top?" he asked, making certain to _not_ look at Weiss.

"Issues, sir?" Weiss asked through grit teeth.

"Before we start, we'll give you a chance to air these our before we start picking them apart one by one. And before any of you try to brush this off or snub us, ask yourselves this. Which is easier? Being open and upfront? Or being talked down to like six year olds caught with their hand in the cookie jar?" Max leaned forward slightly, hands clasped between his knees as he swept his eyes slowly across the team. He then aimed a quick glare at Atin. "Not a word at the horrible joke I just walked into."

"Also, if you ignore us, there will be a fate faaaaaaar worse than us talking down to you. We'll have to come back here until we fix the problem. Also, we can come back anytime we want. Knocking is a formality for people without faculty access," Atin chimed in from over by the door, still eyeing the dubious bunk bed creation.

The reactions were about what Max and Atin had expected. Blake simply opened a book, pointedly avoiding the TAs. Yang and Ruby simply averted their eyes, though Ruby seemed to express more shame than her sister. And Weiss harrumphed, crossing her arms and staring down the TAs. Max sighed. "Ladies, you really don't want this. As Atin told me earlier, his weight was brought up by young Miss Schnee here. While most certainly not the best in shape, we are still faculty of Beacon. The fact we're in any kind of position that allows us to be in a classroom should be telling, to a degree. And I've dealt with much more stubborn people than you lot. I'm willing to play nice. But Atin is just as willing to go the hard route, if only because he finds it fun. Last chance."

"Well, thanks for making me out to be such a pleasant person. I would be insulted if it weren't mostly true," Atin said, slowly and deliberately walking over to Blake's bed.

"Well, let's start with one of the smaller issues, shall we? Not engaging with your team. You four are a team. A _team._ You must live, work, and sleep together for the next four years ladies. You will have to put your lives on the line for each other. You need to talk. You need to engage. YOU NEED TO STOP READING SMUT AND LISTEN TO ME." As he said the last sentence he whirled around, snapping Blake's book shut, and placing it on the nightstand.

"Do. Not. Speak. I am not finished. You, Miss Schnee, need to get over the fact that no one knows, or gives a flying fuck, about who you are. Get over the fact that you weren't made leader. Or perhaps you think that you know better than Professor Ozpin. The man who runs the most prestigious combat academy. I'll answer for you. You don't. You can sit there and glare all you like, but I'm right, and you know it. Oh, and stop grinding your teeth, it's bad for them."

' _Well they haven't tried to kill me yet. Might as well keep going. Things can only go up from here'_ Atin thought to himself, doing his best to disguise his nervous shaking as anger instead.

"All excellent points, Atin." Max looked at the two currently in the crosshairs. Blake's face was one of shock, while Weiss was more indignant. And a rather alarming shade of red on her cheeks. "So let's break them down a bit further, shall we? Mind you, these aren't the only issues, there'll be at least one more we address tonight. And no, I'm not expecting an overnight miracle, that's just ridiculous." He cleared his throat. "Miss Belladonna. You strike me as someone who believes herself to be a lone wolf. That teammates only tie you down. Am I incorrect in this observation?"

"Well, sir...I." Blake looked down, slowly nodding. "I suppose it's not an...inaccurate conclusion to draw."

"But you want to become a Huntress? Someone who, as you yourself answered earlier today, must be dependable. So tell me, how are you accomplishing that on a team by being this lone wolf? I'd love to know your method for succeeding in such a thing." Max stayed silent for a few moments, letting it stretch out. "By your silence, I'll assume you don't actually have an answer. So let me take a guess to your thoughts, at least. That you can't rely on others. It's up to you to accomplish what they can't. They haven't made any progress, which means only you can. You don't need anyone who can't keep up." More silence. "You are on a _team_. As Atin said, you four ladies will be living, eating, and sleeping together for at least four years. You will be dependent on each other in combat. You will come to rely on each other for comradery. You _need_ trust in order to operate as a team."

Atin sat down on the nightstand, careful to avoid the book. "Look, you don't know us. You think we don't know you. You're right, we don't know all the details. But we have done this before, not from this side of the fence, but we have been here. You don't want to trust people. Trusting people, liking them, it can hurt. Look at me, I'm an out of shape, cold hearted, cynical, blunt ass. But I learned a long time ago, you can't do it all on your own. I tried. I failed. Miserably. The only consolation was that the only person who got hurt was me. You girls don't have that luxury. You screw up, and people _die_. Maybe someone you know, maybe not. But that doesn't matter. You have all the potential to be amazing. Ozpin doesn't let in slackers." ' _Well, except for us anyway, but they don't need to know that'._ "But you all have to work together, and trust each other. You have to try. No-one wants to see you kids die." Atin ended his surprisingly kind monologue, wondering where it all came from.

"A sudden change isn't what we're looking for here, Blake." Max looked at the young faunus. "But a promise that you'll at least think on what we said will be enough for us to not hound you for a little while."

Blake looked away, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "I'll...I'll give it some consideration, sirs." Her reply was quiet, muffled by her knees.

"Then that's enough for now. Now, Miss Schnee. The matter of the leader of this team. In your honest opinion, do you believe that you are the best choice to lead this team? And why do you believe as such, if so?" Max looked at the heiress, awaiting her answer.

"Why? _Why_? I am a Schnee. I have had the best education of anyone here. My entire life has been spent training to lead, both in the professional and combat world. My family has produced some of the most powerful and successful hunters Atlas has ever seen. I have trained for years for this role. I am better equipped than anyone else to lead, and quite frankly I deserve better than to be lectured by two glorified gophers!" Weiss finished her rant, eye's simmering with anger, dancing around the room, _daring_ anyone there to argue with her.

"Three times, Miss Schnee." Weiss's glare moved to Max, who met her eyes. "I want you to name me three times, in the last six months, someone told you no."

"And why would you want know that?" she spat out.

"Because to me, as someone who has spent his life learning to read people and situations and then act upon those observations, you appear to be a spoiled young woman who is used to getting her way. Being told no is something of a shock to you, I'm willing to wager. So name me three times in the last six months you have not gotten your way. Three times you had to _earn_ whatever it is you desired."

"I-I…" Weiss closed her eyes in thought, thinking. "There was my application to Beacon. And then there was…"

Max let her continue for a few minutes, watching the back and forth she was having with herself, seemingly remembering something, but quickly realizing it wasn't something she could use as an answer. "So you fought to be able to apply here. And only that, in the past six months. Perhaps there are more times in your life you could use for the challenge, but something tells me you thought back much further than six months already." Weiss shut her mouth, now glaring at the floor. "Miss Schnee, being told no sucks. Plain and simple. When you know your qualifications, you know with every fiber of your being that some kind of job or position is just _meant_ for you, it hurts when it feels like it's suddenly yanked out of your grasp. It feels as though everything you did up to that point was simply for nothing. You want to deny it, blame someone else for simply not seeing what's right there. Anything to accept that you weren't chosen due to someone else completely screwing up. And maybe that's true. Who knows, it is just the first day of school. But I'd argue, Miss Schnee, it's just the first day of school, so why not give Ruby Rose a chance? You said it yourself, you trained for years for this. So why not use it to help your partner become a better leader? She's still two years younger than you, so there's doubtless a number of things for her to catch up on. And she'll need someone's help for that."

"Look, I get it. You think you can do a better a job. Actually, you _know_ you can do a better job. After all, you're you. You have to be right, you always got your way, always got what you wanted. Finding out that you cannot in fact, do everything or be right all the time, is quite the unpleasant wake up call. Take it from someone who knows. Being knocked down a peg by us is much nicer than, say, a Professor. After all, we aren't grading your papers. All joking aside Weiss, I was a very arrogant young man. Well, more arrogant. It took some very good friends of mine to get me to realize what a jerk I was. Max and I aren't your friends. None of us know each other. But I hope you'll listen to someone who has had your problem. I was stupid. I'm still young. Hopefully we can keep you kids from making our mistakes." Atin finished, feeling bad about having to air the team's dirty laundry, but it needed to be done. Hopefully they would air the rest of it. _'I push any harder than this, and they might take a swing at me, TA or no. That would end badly, for everyone. We should probably talk to Ozpin about getting our aura unlocked, before we get killed. At least they seem to be listening to us. At least being the nerdy kid with glasses that always got made fun of is good for something, if it helps them'._

"I understand," Weiss replied, her teeth grit together. "I will... _try_ to take into consideration everything you've said."

Max gave a slight nod to Atin before speaking once more. "And the final issue, though not near as heavy, involves you, Miss Rose."

"S-sir?!" the young huntress-in-training yelped, her back going ramrod straight.

"You can relax, it's not that bad. Being that you were fast tracked two years earlier than the norm, you're behind on subjects. This is more a warning to not push yourself too hard to catch up. Don't be afraid to ask your teammates for help. And don't be afraid to ask the teachers, either. You've got a lot of catching up to do and a short time to do it in. You'll have to really buckle down to catch up and prove that you deserve to keep your spot here just as much as anyone here. Might seem like a lot of pressure, but I trust Professor Ozpin in his choices of teams and leaders. If anyone is here at Beacon, then it's because they deserve to be."

"Oh! Um, okay, Mr. Max. I'll do my best!"

"Good enthusiasm. Well, I think that's about all we need to talk about for the time being. I'll just leave the cookies here with you girls." Max stood up from the chair, placing it back under the desk.

"Do us all a favor, don't make us come back. Please. This isn't any fun for us either. We don't enjoy berating students, even if they have been rude to us." Atin stood up and handed the book back to Blake. "Oh and a final note Blake, maybe make some mock covers for those books. Some people read titles."

"Don't stay up too late, girls. Apparently, the first years have combat class first thing tomorrow morning." With that, Max opened the door, walking out. Atin followed, closing the door as he went, resisting the urge to add one final quip. Once the TAs were back in their suite, with the door closed, Max turned to Atin. "Feel better after those rants?"

"I'll have you know that I take _no_ pleasure in ranting at people. It's no fun when they can't talk back, although it was nice to slap some metaphorical sense into Weiss. I think I could get used to this Oracle gig". Atin said as he headed for his room and his most treasured companion, a warm bed.


	5. Chapter 5

Atin was relaxing on the bed, just beginning to contemplate sleep, when his door was smashed open, and the smell of cheap whiskey rolled into the room. He sat there, stunned at the sight of Qrow.

"Stop sitting there staring, kid. Come on, I have a lot of work to do with you, and no idea why I have to bother, so I'm not in a great mood right now." Qrow took a pull from his flask and began walking over towards Max's door, presumably to offer a repeat performance. A swift kick broke the door jamb, revealing Max sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at Qrow.

"Dude, what the fuck? For the time I'm living here, that's _my_ door," Max complained. He leaned to the side, noticing Atin's door was also open. "Did you break his, too? Atin, did he break your door?"

"Yes, he did. What I want to know is why, because while I can operate on 4 hours of sleep, it makes me very grumpy and unpleasant. So what do you have to say for yourself? And for your sake, I really hope it's a good explanation, or I'll start following you around all day and just complaining, and you won't be able to get rid of me," Atin groused from his bed, not having gotten up yet.

"I'm gonna be one of your personal trainers, for some fuck-all reason," Qrow replied, walking towards the door of their common room, his voice growing quiet. "So get your asses down to the training hall. Goodwitch wants you two dead from exhaustion by the time two o'clock hits."

Max looked to Atin, who simply looked back, shrugging. As they left their respective bedrooms and approached the front door, Max threw his hands into the air. "That was our front door!"

* * *

"We aren't getting paid enough to deal with this torture, Max. It's four in the morning, I'm tired, I'm sore, and my door is broken. Why are we putting up with this again?" His voice floating up from the floor which Atin had decided was his new bed.

Max was sat near him, shaking his head. "He actually killed us with exhaustion...I didn't think he was serious," the young man was mumbling, scratching at his head. After a fresh respawn just moments ago, the two were sitting in their common room after Qrow had run them through intense exercising. Sometime during their hour of death, the Huntsman had left, leaving them to wake up a person short.

"I wish Qrow hadn't found out that us dying removes the effects of sleep deprivation. He hasn't stopped pushing at all this week. I've forgotten what it feels like to not be sore. And he won't even share the whiskey!" Atin yelled from his still door-less room.

"When are we getting a new front door, at least?" Max asked, groaning. "It's been more than five days, already. We put the work order in literally hours after it was broken."

"I've just decided to start telling students we removed it to better embody the concept of an open door policy, because we care about the well-being of our students." His muffled voice came from the interior of the fridge that had been installed because of their faculty status.

Max sighed at the answer. "Best we've got, I guess. At least we have most weekends off. Gives us some time to actually unwind and play catch up on the studies. Never thought I'd be going back to school so soon," he grumbled, resting his head on the table he had moved his chair towards.

"Boy it's a good thing the bathroom has a door, and Crow didn't break that one to just complete the set, otherwise this would have been a problem. Should we get one of those stupid bead curtains for some semblance of privacy though?" Atin wondered to himself, as he made his way over to the table. As he was sitting down, his scroll went off with a message. "Soooooooo, I think we fucked up. Ozpin wants to see us. Now."

"Hmmm...do you think our berating actually fucked up Team RWBY's dynamic? Maybe that's why he's calling us in."

"I mean, it's not like we could have made it _worse_ than what it was. Given that it was a non-existent one. Unless you count aloofness, disdain, and over eagerness as a team dynamic."

"Well, not a healthy dynamic…"

"I mean, it's not like we didn't do anything they wouldn't. We just beat them to it, maybe he's mad that we stole his thunder?"

With a muffled _ding_ , Max's scroll alerted him to a message of his own. Looking at it, he sighed. "Okay, he _really_ wants to see us. Let's get going."

"Sure. After all, what's the worst he can do? Kill us? It'll be a nice excuse to miss Oobleck's next class."

After making their way to Ozpin's office, they stood in front of the Headmaster of Beacon, who gestured for them to take a seat. "Well, gentlemen, the first week of school has come to an end. How do you find yourselves adjusting?" Ozpin asked, his gaze moving between the two.

"Well between culture shock, the stress of a job I am in no way qualified for, early morning torture sessions with your personal attack trainer, and the complete absence of pop-tarts in this world, pretty bad." Atin had gone back to his favorite spot on Ozpin's wall, knowing there was no point in hoping the man would get a second chair.

"On top of having to study the material faster than the students and suddenly being told that the two of us are expected to occasionally handle student issues, in a manner similar to a counselor, and I'm starting to wish I couldn't respawn, something I never thought I'd say in my life," Max added in, taking the only chair that sat on the guest side of the desk.

"And to top everything off, Maintenance still hasn't fixed any of our 3 doors. Qrow broke those like, a week and half ago. This is nuts. At this rate the students might actually think we have an open door policy and care about their well being, and trust me Professor, the last thing you want is me giving life advice to your students. The only thing that would be worse is letting Qrow do it. Scratch that, I wouldn't tell them to solve all their problems with drinking. Just bottling it up and lashing out, but still it really isn't that much of an improvement. Also, we need to talk about this whole laissez faire attitude to teacher and faculty administration. I get that you needed some excuse to keep us around, but we are so unqualified to offer these kids any help. Hell, they have their lives more together than I did. I was repeating a year of college because I liked sleeping too much. Meanwhile these are seventeen-year-olds training to kill monsters. I can't give them any advice other than to knock off the angst."

"Uh...you going anywhere with this point, Atin? Because I think you made it four or five sentences back…"

"I just felt the need to drive home the point that I am utterly, completely, laughably unqualified for this, and I don't even get to cheat and help make things easier for everyone else. Instead, I might as well be trying to steal Jaune's nickname of vomit-boy!" Atin ranted, having begun pacing just to get rid of some his energy.

"It's going well, then," Ozpin finally said when it was clear the two were done.

Max stared at the man with a deadpan expression. "Sure. Why not."

Atin spun on his heel to look directly at Ozpin. "Did you hear anything I said? I'm starting to think people are right. You are actually just a lunatic with no idea what he is doing." Atin stared goggle eyed at Ozpin.

"A reasonable assertion, I assureyou, Mr. Atin." Ozpin took a sip of coffee, while both of the young men dropped their jaws. "However, to date, taking you two on has been...more fortuitous than Glynda and I had believed."

"You're shitting me…" Max looked at Ozpin, fully believing he was lying. Atin was nodding furiously from his spot in the room at Max's comment.

Ozpin chuckled quietly, folding his hands in front of him. "I am not lying or joking here. Bartholomew has mentioned that students are having an easier time with note taking in class than usual. Even our older students are seeing improvements on homework and quizzes, now that they have a, so I've heard, 'translator' in the room."

"Oh come on, he isn't that hard to understand. Sure he talks fast, but at least he doesn't have an accent, and his assignments aren't exactly rocket science. 'Go read chapter 6, summarize'. It's not my fault the kids are lazy. How can they not like history? Philistines. All I started doing was whacking the ones who fell asleep. Jaune learned to sleep with his eyes open after day 2. It felt good to give back to the students." Atin remained in the center of room, still incredulous, and still unable to stop being sarcastic.

"Results speak for themselves, young man. There's also the matter of a much higher than usual participation in Peter's classes. Apparently, many of the students are showing a bit more passion than usual in understanding the underlying lessons within his stories. He believes that you are at least partially responsible for that, Max."

"Well, uh…" Max continued to sit there, trying to find words. "Surely that's an exaggeration, that the students haven't paid near the amount of attention in the past than they do now."

"It is no exaggeration, I assure you. There has even been some progress with Team RWBY. There's...a bit less tension, but there does appear to be an honest effort on each young lady's part in contributing to actually being a team. I feel rather confident now that my choice to have you two tackle the situation was the right one."

Max nearly fell out of his chair, while Atin threw his hands in the air. "But all I did was let Atin rant at them and then offered vague reconciliation!" Max exclaimed, gripping the chair's armrests tightly.

"All I did was yell at them and tell them the blindingly obvious. Anyone not experiencing teenage angst could have done what I did. I bet it was the cookies Max made. Max, what did you put in those cookies?" Atin questioned, popping his head over Max's shoulder.

"Chocolate chips, some eggs, bit of flour, you know, the usual shit you'd put in scratch cookies. Hell, I had a couple myself, just to make sure they tasted right! Nothing happened!" Max scratched his head, earnestly confused now.

Ozpin continued to stare at the two for a moment longer, smiling. "Well, as unbelievable as it may seem to you, you have both had some small impact on the academy in some way. Though if you're that hellbent on failing at your job, you still have another three weeks to screw up in some fantastically overly dramatic way. Though I'd personally like to keep you two on, for the foreseeable future," the headmaster said.

"What do you consider 'fantastically overly dramatic way', coffee man? 'Cause when I screw up, I screw it up hard. Knowing my luck, I'll end up causing horrid psychological damage to one of the teams." Atin's voice echoed slightly as he made his way over to the elevator. "And don't worry, I'm taking the normal way down."

"These students are borderline child soldiers, Mr. Atin." Ozpin's reply froze Atin at the elevator, Max stopping in the middle of standing from the chair. "I don't believe there's much you could do to actually harm them psychologically. Please remember, these aren't 'normal' teenagers you are dealing with. They are warriors, training to protect people. You can shock them. Possibly scar them. But there is very literally you can do to them that will be lasting."

"Normally I would take that as a challenge, but I really have no desire to inflict PTSD on anyone." Under his breath, he muttered, "Anyone at this school anyway."

Max looked between Atin and Ozpin, before shrugging. "Oaky, I'm just, uh, gonna go get ready for the work day. Uh...bye?"


	6. Chapter 6

**Max: Okay, to get confusion the FUCK out of the way now, we will be using a semester school system for this story. We'll also be using a 365-day year and 24 hours in a day, because quite frankly, we haven't got enough info without doing some really stupidly complex calculations and estimating.**

 **Atin: And I'm shit at math, so that isn't gonna happen**

* * *

"Hey, Slate, thanks for fixing up our bedroom doors," Max said, standing in the common room with Atin and a man in Maintenance coveralls.

The man in question, Slate, simply smiled, waving his hand. "Nah, don't mention it. More than happy to bump you boys closer to the top of the list. Hell, I wanna shake your hands," the older man said, his laughter booming.

"Shake our hands? Why? And I'm not complaining, because I have a door I can close, but why bump us to the top?" Atin's voice came from inside the freezer, putting away some the groceries they had gone out for while Slate was working.

"Well, it's just heartwarming to see when faculty actually give two shits about their students. Why, when ol' Oz told me you boys were adopting an open door policy, I had one of our other maintenance folks start digging around for a bead curtain to put in place of your front door!"

A series of alarmingly loud thumps began to echo from the freezer punctuated with various insults.

"Is he uhhhh… Is he gonna be okay?" Slate stared at the freezer, concerned that yet another teaching assistant had lost their mind.

"He's fine. Just working something out. Anyways, thanks again for fixing our doors, hope you have a wonderful day, Slate." Max walked Slate to the open door frame, shaking the maintenance man's hand once he was in the hall.

"Just give us a call whenever you need somethin' fixed up, a'ight? And we'll have that bead curtain soon as possible." With that, Slate walked away, off to fix something else in the academy.

Max stepped back into the room, staring at Atin."Do I even need to say it, Atin?"

"Fuck off, I'm trying to concuss myself over here. Let me do my penance in peace. Also, the chicken was already bloody before I started doing this. Just so you know." His explanation finished, Atin resumed trying to add a new access point between the fridge and freezer.

* * *

Atin heard the clatter of beads, and stifled a groan, keeping it strictly internal. He didn't want to deal with another student's problems. _Why did I ever open my mouth about an open door policy? I know it get's me into trouble, and I still just keep letting it go. I wonder what it is this time? I swear, if it's one more person who can't understand Oobleck, I'm jumping out the window._ Atin got out his chair, reluctantly turning to see who had availed themselves of the "Open Door" policy.

"Excuse me, Mr. Atin? I was wondering if you had a moment to talk about something…delicate?" Ren's voice trailed off, looking slightly nervous.

 _Ren? What the hell could Ren possibly want? I don't think he had any problems, so what could this be about?_ Atin thought quickly, trying to remember everything about the old seasons.

"Of course I have time for you, we pride ourselves on always having time for our students. What can I do for you? If you need a summary of Oobleck's last lecture, I have the transcript up outside the door." _I only did that so they would leave me alone, and half the time they don't even see it. I even bought one of those stupid plastic document holders!_ Atin waited patiently, hoping that it wouldn't take long.

"Uhhh do you have somewhere more private we could talk sir? I would rather no one overhear this particular issue." Ren looked pointedly at the open doorframe.

"Uhhhhh, we can use my room I guess." _I wonder if this is about how he feels about Nora. Boy I hope so, cause I can handle that easy, just give him the whole follow your heart crap._ Atin opened the door to his room, waiting for Ren to go in before following him in and leaving the door slightly ajar, so anyone looking could see there were people there.

"Well sir, I wanted to talk to you about our team leader. Jaune. He seems to be getting bullied quite a bit by Cardin Winchester and his team. I think it's starting to have an effect on his schoolwork as well." Ren looked nervous as he spoke, as if he didn't want to be there.

 _Oh goddamnit, why couldn't Max be the one to deal with this. How am I gonna handle this? I can't just spit out a platitude and call it a day. I can't even be sure any of this advice will make it back to Jaune._ "Well, that's a very serious accusation, Ren. Do you have proof of this? I really can't do much on my own, I am just an assistant teacher after all." _Perfect, that will kick the problem up to teachers, if he even has any proof to begin with. Crisis averted by making sure someone more qualified deals with it!_ Atin tried to contain a satisfied grin, pleased to have solved the problem and have avoided any work.

"Well no, I don't have any proof, per se. Just a feeling mostly. I see Cardin talking to Jaune after class, with his whole team there, ringing him in. Or small things, like Jaune always seems to trip near Cardin, or drop his books. That kind of thing." Ren grew more confident as he listed off the things Cardin had done.

"I admit, that is troubling, and I have been concerned about Jaune in class. He does seem quite stressed lately. But sadly, I can't really do much about that. My hands are tied without something more firm. But what I can suggest to you is this. Just like you have no proof Jaune is being bullied, were the same things to happen to someone else, they too would be similar situation. No school sanctioned action could be taken without something more solid in the way of evidence." Atin looked down at Ren, hoping the young man understood.

"Sir…are you suggesting I bully Cardin?" Ren looked shocked that a teacher, even an assistant one, could advocate such a thing.

Atin affected a hurt look, and straightened up, exclaiming "Of course not! I would never dream of suggesting one student harass another. Such a thing would violate the school's code of ethics and academic standards. I'm merely suggesting that a lack of solid evidence would make any kind of official action impossible. It would be unfortunate if Mr. Cardin also begin experiencing sudden vertigo spells, the kind that are plaguing Mr. Arc. There is of course one option to you as well. You could talk to Cardin, and ask him to stop. And of course, the combat arena is always open, provided you have a teacher to supervise the match." Atin sat down on his bed hoping that he had solved the problem without making himself look too bad, and knowing in his heart that he had failed miserably on that front.

"I…suppose I could try talking to Cardin. I don't how well that will work though. Bullies don't tend to be very reasonable after all, and Cardin never seems like a reasonable person at the best of time, and even less so when goes on one of his...unpleasant Faunus rants. Can you do anything about those at least, Sir?" Ren seemed to add the last part almost as an afterthought.

"Yes, try talking to him. That is the most mature way to resolve this after all. As for Cardin's… unpleasant rants, I can't stop him from thinking it of course, but I can make sure he stops doing it in public forum. Such a thing counts as harassment, and with an official complaint lodged I can bring it up to him. Thanks for giving me the excuse for that." Atin stood up, heading towards door. "Is there anything else I can help you with today, Ren?"

"No Sir, that's all I wanted to talk about" Ren headed towards the common room, pausing at the sound of Atin's voice.

"I am sorry I couldn't be of more help with the problem Ren, but as I said. Without some more solid proof, my hands are tied, just like they would be for anyone else." Atin closed his room door behind him, waiting for Ren to leave before he got back to a treasured pastime, nothing.

But fate had decreed it not to be, as the clatter of beads heralded the arrival of Max. "Yo...Ren, what are you doing here?" he asked, looking between his roommate and student.

"I was just getting some help on a personal matter from Mr. Atin. He had some…interesting advice." Ren stated somewhat apprehensively.

"Okay, that's it. This sounds so dumb. My last name is not Atin, it's Winchester. I can't stand another however many months I'm here of 'Mr. Atin'. So my last name is Winchester, got it? It's either Mr. WInchester or Atin." Atin breathed a sigh of relief at never having to hear something as stupid as 'Mr. Atin' again.

"Waaait a minute, is this why you won't take any action against Cardin? Are you two related in some way?" Ren asked, a look of puzzlement on his face.

Max snorted at Ren's reaction, clearly amused. "They aren't related in the slightest, Ren. God help Cardin if they actually were," Max answered, shaking his head at the image.

"Oh god I wish I was related to that little shit. Then I might be able to make him do something different, or threaten to tell his parents or something. Doubt they would care, but at least I could try." Atin slumped into his chair, a sad look written on his face. "Oh and Ren, you did not hear me call another student a little shit. Got it?"

Ren appeared to be in state of shock in the middle of the room, unable to grasp that Beacons teaching assistants, or at least one of them, were anything less that proffesional at all times.

"Don't misunderstand, Ren, Cardin has some potential as a Huntsman in training," Max said, moving to lean on the partition between kitchen and common room. "But the kid's a bit of a cunt sometimes."

"Sometimes? There's that trademark optimism of yours Max, always looking for the best in people." Atin snarked from his chair.

Ren, still dumbfounded, walked slowly from the room, still not quite sure of how to deal with his problem, but certain that he wouldn't be going to Mr. Winchester anytime soon again. "Ren, in all seriousness, maybe a second opinion would be of use here. Would you be willing to explain the problem to me now?" Max asked, stopping the student just at the threshold.

"I suppose that a second opinion would be useful. But it's a personal matter, so I would prefer not to discuss it out in the open. Could we go somewhere more private for this talk?" Ren seemed relieved at the thought he might get actual advice on how to deal with his situation.

Max looked behind him at the bead curtain, nodding. "Yeah, fair point. Maybe we should see about getting a sliding door, at the very least," he replied, standing back up to walk towards his own room. "Step into my office, then." Once in Max's bedroom, the door left with a slight crack, Max took a seat on his bed. "Hope you don't mind. Was getting in some exercise with a walk around the grounds. So, this problem?"

From outside the door came Atin's voice "Remember to leave room for Jesus, Max!"

"Ya know, I think I might take up knife throwing again. Got the perfect dummy for target practice, too," Max said, facepalming. "Ignoring Atin, do go on, Ren."

"Leave room for… Jesus? Who is Jesus? Do you guys have a friend dropping by?" Ren asked, looking a bit confused.

Max sighed. "As I said, ignore him. It's just...a reference from back home."

"Okayyyy then. Anyway, the problem is that I'm certain Cardin is bullying Jaune, and it's starting to become a problem. His grades weren't the best to begin with, and I'm worried about him failing if they get lower. Mr. Winchester said he can't do anything without some kind of proof. He also suggested I try talking to Cardin. Also he seemed to be suggesting I bully Cardin in return. Or fight him in the practice room." Ren looked relieved to be talking to someone else.

Max looked to the door, then back at Ren. "Okay. Valid points, in his defense. But, let's go ahead and start ticking down why you're disappointed in this advice, shall we?"

Atin's voice came floating in through the half closed door "I'm blind, not deaf ya know Max! And only partially blind at that!"

Ignoring Atin, Max held up a hand, ticking down with his fingers. "Talking to Cardin just isn't going to do much to actually improve the situation. It could make it worse. The kid's too hard headed and stubborn to talk sense into when it comes to stuff like this." Ren nodded, Max continuing on. "Doing to Cardin what he's doing to Jaune could also make things worse. More than likely, he'll just up this little campaign of his that you believe he's waging on Jaune. It would also bring you down to his level, so you'd immediately lose whatever moral ground you currently stand on. And then, there's the fight bit. I'm sure one of the teachers would be more than happy to oversee a match, but let's be honest here. You fighting him in Jaune's place is just too embarrassing for Jaune himself. It's not going to prove a thing. And, well...nothing against Jaune, but he hasn't got a great track record in the combat course right now." Max dropped his hand, looking back up at Ren. "That about sum it up?"

"More or less, yes. I just need to know what I'm supposed to do. I just want to help my team, and I'm not sure how to do it in this situation. And somehow, I doubt that talking to Cardin is going to do anything productive." Ren appeared hopeful that Max would be able to offer an actual solution to his problem.

"Well, putting aside Atin's solutions, which, by the way, should be kept under consideration, let's check a couple others. The first and most obvious one. Have you, your team, or any of Jaune's other friends actually confronted the alleged victim in question about this?"

"Ummm, well no, I haven't actually talked to Jaune. I don't know if Pyrrha or Nora has noticed yet, and like you already said, I have no desire to embarrass Jaune, which is why I came to you. I'm pretty sure that if Nora or Pyrrha noticed, I think he would never speak to the team again." Ren began to look nervous as his hopes for a solution continued to dwindle.

"Well, bringing it up in a private setting is certain to be less embarrassing. You could also bring him here to talk with Atin or myself about it." Max crossed his arms, thinking. "Mmm...perhaps a subtle nudge towards training would help as well. Bring up the idea of team sparring outside of combat courses. Maybe even some one on one training. Pyrrha could probably help him learn some basics with sword and shield."

"If nothing else, he'll thank you for giving an excuse to spend time with Pyrrha!" Atin chimed in.

"Odds are, Ren, he doesn't want to admit it because he doesn't want to be seen as weak. He's a team leader, but, well, it's no secret he's the weakest of this year's entrants to Beacon. His self-esteem is probably in the shitter right around now. There may not be a good solution to this, just one that isn't as crappy as the others."

"Have him come talk to us! It can't make anything worse, can it?" Atin popped his head in the door, having grown tired of shouting.

Max's gaze landed on a whiteboard in the common room, a small marker crow in one corner, a number of marks on the board. "In fact, Ren, we'll come to your room. I think we can dig up an extra credit project for Jaune. We'll kill two birds with one stone," Max said, now grinning. "Have Jaune dressed for combat class by around...Atin, was our training at 10:00 or 9:00 tonight, it being a Saturday?"

"10:00, cause we don't have to be in class, or be useful in any way, so he works us half to death. Because he hates our guts, and us. Also possibly people in general, but that might have nothing to do with us." Atin slumped a little, sore just from the thought of what Qrow would to do them.

"Are you sure that's the best way to help Jaune? This person sounds…extreme." Ren appeared apprehensive at signing his teammate for something without talking to them first.

"I mean come on, it got my ass in shape. I can actually run a 7 minute mile now. It doesn't help me get away that often, but I'm in way better shape than before. If nothing, it will guarantee Jaune can outlast his opponents, which might be all the edge he needs." Atin headed back out into the common room, not bothering to close the door behind him.

"Besides, he won't be going through the hell that we normally go through. 10:00 o'clock training days are pretty light. He mostly just has us stretch and tries to teach us basic hand to hand combat. I can almost throw a proper punch now!" Max explained. "Anyways, I'll clear this with Professor Goodwitch. I'm hoping it won't take too much persuasion to get this cleared with her."

"It's Goodwitch. The idea of actively seeking extra credit help will sell her on this by themselves. We won't have to do any convincing, Max," Atin chimed in from the kitchenette where he was busy getting dinner ready.


	7. Chapter 7

Team JNPR's door slammed open, greeting them with the sight of Beacon's two teaching assistants, one enthusiastic, the other exasperated.

"Come on Jaune! It's time for some extra credit! Let's go kiddo, I hope you're ready for some pain, 'cause this instructor is a fan of learning by doing." Atin entered the room looking disturbingly chipper for someone about to spend two hours getting beaten up.

"Oooo, extra credit?! What's he gonna be doing?" asked Nora, jumping up from her bed.

"Beacon has a remedial combat course, where they bring in guest instructors to help students sharpen up their combat skills. It's usually not offered until a student is actually failing, but we were able to convince Goodwitch to let us bring him along, since this particular instructor is quite skilled."

"Uh...where is Jaune, actually? Ren, you did make sure to tell him ten, right? Tonight?" Max asked, noting the absence of the blond student they had come to drag into training.

Ren looked around nervously "He said he would be here, but I got the feeling he was worried about what the 'extra credit' would entail."

Max closed the door of the room. "Atin, go check the bathroom, I'll check the closet. Nora, be a dear and stand at the door, make sure he doesn't try to bolt?"

"Aye aye, sir!" Nora saluted Max, marching to the door before turning back to look around the room.

"Come out, come out wherever you are, Jaune. This is a very small room, and the longer you make us wait, the worse it will be for you. After all, your new teacher is so very excited to meet you, and he hates to be kept waiting." Atin kicked open the bathroom door, hoping to surprise the young man. The bathroom, however, was empty.

"Alright, let's check door number two," Max said, opening the closet. He shifted clothes around, but there was no sign of Jaune. "Hmm…"

"Well he isn't in here, and he isn't in the closet. Nora, where is Pyrrha?" Atin asked.

"The library," Nora replied with a grin.

* * *

"Ahhhh, the library, the least used facility on campus. Because why read a book when you have google? Or whatever Remnant's equivalent is." Atin looked around the inside, wondering just where their errant student was hiding.

Max looked around, looking for a shock of red hair or blonde hair. "Well, they were bright enough to not sit at any tables in view of the entrance," he noted. "Which means we have to put even _more_ effort into finding him. We're already fifteen minutes late. Qrow will not be happy."

"For once, that is not actually our problem. He can take it out on Jaune. I'm just surprised that Pyrrha would help him hide from extra credit. I'll take the left side of the room, you take the right. And be ready to grab him in case he tries to book it. I am not gonna spend another 15 minutes playing tag." Atin started walking off towards the left, eyes glancing quickly down the rows of books. After a few minutes he saw them tucked away in the back corner, their backs to the aisle, Jaune doing his level best to hide behind a stack of a books. As he got closer he was able to hear what Jaune and Pyrrha were saying.

"Thanks, Pyr, I really appreciate your help," Jaune said, a book in hand.

"It's no problem, Jaune. Though I must admit, I was a bit surprised at your sudden interest to study for Monday's quiz," Pyrrha replied, a notebook open in front of her.

 _They don't know I'm here. Time for some payback for making me hunt for you Jaune._ Atin grabbed a large book off the shelf and began slowly walking towards the table, doing his best not to make any noise. He got close to the table, and raised the book as high as he could, ready to drop between the two of them.

 _WHAM_

The book slammed down into the center of table shattering the stillness of the library, and earning a shout of alarm from Pyrrha and a squeak of surprise from Jaune. "So, this is where you've been hiding Jaune. We are now twenty minutes late, and boy is it gonna be worse for you because of it. This instructor is not what I would call… patient at the best of times, and this is gonna test the limits of it." Atin grabbed Jaune by the hood, dragging him towards the entrance of the library.

Max walked up by this point, following the sound of a book being slammed. "Oh, good, you found him. Let's get going, the instructor's going to kick our asses bad enough as is," he said, turning back towards the entrance of the library.

"S-sirs?" Pyrrha finally stuttered out, her initial shock at seeing her team leader and partner being dragged out the door wearing off. She quickly stood up, jogging to catch up. "Excuse me, Mr. Max, Mr. Atin, what are you doing?!"

"Ah, Pyrrha. Evening. We're just escorting Jaune to his extra credit project for combat class. Don't worry, we should have him back in your dorm by one in the morning. If he'd just been ready when he was told, it would be twelve, but he decided to try and ditch." Max shrugged as they started walking towards the training arena.

"Extra credit? For combat class?"

"Quit struggling, it will only make breathing harder. And no, I will not let go. Dignity is a privilege, one you have forfeited, Mr. Arc. Here we are going out of our way to get you special combat training to give you an edge, and you try to rope a model student into helping you ditch. Really, lying to your teammate and partner, that's no way to go about things." Atin did his best to adopt a scolding tone while trying not let them see just how much fun he was having.

"Now, you go on back to your dorm room, Pyrrha. We have it from here," Max said, putting a hand on Pyrrha's shoulder and gently pushing her back towards the dorm rooms while he and Atin continued on with Jaune in tow to the training arena. "You can ask Jaune all about how much fun he had in training once he's back in the dorms himself later tonight."

Pyrrha slowly walked off after that, giving a confused sounding, "Yes, sir."

Max nodded to himself in satisfaction, looking down at Jaune as Atin continued dragging the student. "So, is there anything you'd like to say before we actually get there, Jaune?"

"Um...I'm sorry?" Jaune weakly offered.

"Not yet you aren't. But you will be. By extension, so will we because we are now half an hour late, and our wonderful instructor drinks to pass the time. He also drinks when annoyed. You have will managed to make him both, which he is now drunk and angry, which will be taken out on us. So get ready, because this train has no brakes or mercy." Atin pulled harder than was strictly needed on Jaunes hood, dragging him along. Jaune's only recourse was to sigh and hang his head.

* * *

"I'm starting to get worried. It's one-forty, and we haven't even got a message from Jaune. Mr. Force said they would be back at one, right Pyrrha?" Ren shot Pyrrha a nervous glance where she was pacing back and forth in the center of their room.

"That's what he said, yes," Pyrrha replied with a sharp nod.

Nora, meanwhile, sat on her bed, nonchalant. "No need to freak out, guys, I'm sure everything's fine!" she said, her thumb flicking at her Scroll's screen.

"You seem rather calm, Nora," Pyrrha noted, her pacing coming to a stop.

"Well, I trust Mr. Max, I guess," Nora replied, looking up from her scroll and shrugging.

"...What about Mr. Atin?"

"...I trust Mr. Max…"

"That's not actually his last name. Mr. Atin. His last name is Winchester. Before you ask, no he is not related to Cardin, thankfully," Ren spoke up once again.

There came a gentle rapping at their door, which Pyrrha sprang to answer, where she saw Atin stepping back from the door to reveal Max, with Jaune slung over his shoulder.

"Right, here's your leader back, safe and sound," Max said, pointing at the groaning Huntsman-in-training. "And in one piece! Little guy had so much fun, though, he's managed to tucker himself out. Isn't that right, Jaune?"

"Ugggghhh," was the reply.

"You guys should probably get him into bed. Don't let him try to get up, he'll thank you for it later. Maybe spray some Febreeze over him, he stinks." Atin gave Jaune a little nudge with his hand, eliciting another pained groan the boy.

"Okay, so, who wants him?" Max asked, moving to get Jaune off of his shoulder. As his feet connected to ground, Jaune stumbled against the door frame, leaning heavily on it. "Oh, wow, he's actually standing under his own power...I'm actually impressed, Atin and I usually just lay wherever we fell for a few hours during the first day or two."

"Yeah. It was… interesting. Hey Jaune, can you hear us buddy? How many fingers am I holding up?" Atin held up two fingers in front of the poor Huntsman-in-training.

"What kind of training did you take him to?" Ren stood up from the bed, putting his shoulder under Jaune, helping Jaune over to his bed and setting him down on it.

"Let's see, some basic aerobics to start off, a run, basic strength training, and then he beat the shit out of us under the guise of teaching us the basics of fighting," Max replied, holding a finger up each time he listed something. "On the upside, though, we found out Jaune actually can throw a punch. Downside, the instructor barely felt it."

"In Jaune's defence, this is a trained Huntsman, and he did compliment him on his form, even if 'my niece punched harder when she was twelve' was said. Anyway he should be fine with plenty of rest and water." Atin began heading towards the door, eager to get off his own feet, so he could stop locking his knees to stay upright.

Max followed him out, closing the door on the way. Once the door was completely closed and they were around the corner, Max leaned against the wall heavily. "Holy shit, was that session worse than usual for the light sessions?" he asked, looking at Atin on the other side of the hall. "I think my bruises have bruises now."

"I told Jaune that Qrow was gonna take it out on all of us, and boy did he. I haven't been this sore since, ever actually. At least I knew how to punch when we started. Jaune nearly broke his fingers. Who doesn't know that you put your thumb over your finger to punch, not inside them?" Atin slumped against the wall, finally letting his exhaustion show.

They stayed like that for a bit, before Max remembered something. "Our room is the other way, isn't it? We're literally just two or three doors down from RWBY and JNPR, at the other end of the hall…"

"You are correct. However, I would suggest that floor can be extremely comfortable, and that we should just go to sleep right here. Maybe a kind student will drag us to our room. That open door policy has to be good for something." Atin reluctantly began trudging back around the corner, not even bothering to lift his feet as he made his way back to his room.

Max took a deep breath, slowly straightening back up to limp behind Atin. "I am so glad today's Sunday. I think I'm just gonna bake today. Fuck it. Cookies for everyone," he grumbled to himself.

"You do that. I'm making tacos. Two am is the perfect time for tacos after all. Think RWBY or JNPR will want some?" Atin grabbed the pan from the cabinets, eager for food.

"I dunno. Do you think Jaune could hold it down? Hell, is RWBY even awake by this point?"

"You underestimate how quickly the smell of tacos will wake people. And if you wake people up with the smell of tacos, you have to be ready to share. Unlike my roommate, who was a dick and did not share when he did it to me. Can you chop up some veggies? Gotta have fixings to throw on after all." Atin looked over at Max, surprised to see him heading for his room.

"Nah, I'm going to bed. Try not to cut yourself." Max closed his bedroom door behind him, leaving Atin alone in the main area.

"I'm not turning away anyone who wants tacos though, so good luck sleeping man." Atin began humming to himself, eager to share the joy of morning tacos.


	8. Chapter 8

Atin blearily looked at his scroll, noting that it was eleven in the morning, and thus far too early for any decent person to be up on a Sunday. He had been rudely awakened by the sun saying good morning. Resigned to not getting anymore sleep, he started heading towards the bathroom, only to be stopped in his tracks with awe. Before him was no less than four dozen gross of cookies, of all kinds arrayed all over their apartment, and a crowd of students in front of their 'door'.

"Morning, Atin," Max said, a tray of raw cookie dough going into the oven. "How was the taco party?"

"It was great. There were four of them, and we all enjoyed it. Now mind telling me when you became the pied piper? Or maybe you have another explanation for the horde of children outside our room on Sunday?" Atin appeared apprehensive at the number of students, wondering where they would fit, and how long they would stay, since he couldn't shower till after they left.

"Oh, they'll leave bit by bit." Max popped a lid onto a plastic container, before handing it to a student, who walked off, one other student leaving with them. "They started showing up when I got to the third batch and I ended up just throwing batches into containers and giving them to teams."

"Okayyyyy. And why are you baking so many cookies? For that matter, where did you get all the ingredients for this?" Atin began slowly inching towards a sugar cookie, eager for a morning snack.

Max looked at Atin in silence. "Well...I have to go get more groceries today, so...does that answer the ingredients thing? That batch that just went in is the last one." He started throwing cookies into more containers, giving them out to the students until there was only one left at the door. "Last batch'll be out in just a few minutes, Jade. Would you like to take a seat on the couch while you wait?"

"Oh, um...sure, Mr. Max. Thanks!" was the bubbly reply from the last student.

Atin chucked a cookie at the bubbly girl, grumbling just loud enough to be heard, "It's too early for people to be this cheerful. Go away."

Max sighed. "Atin, no throwing cookies at students, even if it would just bounce off their aura. Jade, go ahead and take a seat, he's just not much of a morning person before his shower," Max explained, taking one of the chairs at the table for himself.

"I can't have that shower until all the students you've ensorcelled with baked goods leave. So until they leave, they shall be my target practice. Besides I doubt Jade mind's the extra cookies." As he spoke, he threw another cookie which hit the wall far away from the student, a result of his nonexistent depth perception. "Or least, she might not mind if I could get them close to her."

Jade giggled as she started eating the first cookie that had been thrown in her general direction, walking to the couch. "It's okay, I think most of us have gotten used to Mr. Atin's personality by this point," she said, leaning into the couch's back.

"That is an alarming prospect. I'm gonna have to try harder to keep you little nightmares off balance. I shall, from this day forward, turn the sarcasm up to level three! Beware students." Atin struck a dramatic pose, the effect more than a little diminished by the t-shirt and flannel pants.

"Oh, you going for a Power Rangers audition? Why didn't you tell me, Atin? I'm hurt," Max said with mock disappointment in his voice. Or perhaps actual disappointment, considering the sight in front of him.

"What's this? Sarcasm from Max? Jade, tell me you were recording that! This is a rare event, and it must be chronicled, or else everyone will think us liars!" Atin tried to hide the smile that was breaking out on his face, unable to keep the corner of his mouth from quirking upwards. At that moment, a _DING_ came from the kitchen countertop, prompting Atin to walk over to the oven to take care of packaging the cookies.

Jade was having a good laugh from the couch at the teaching assistants' back and forth. "I'll try to remember to have my scroll recording next time you two are in the same room, sir," she replied once her laughter subsided enough for her to speak in full sentences.

"Good to know that some of our students are capable of learning. Sometimes I despair for the youth of Remnant, but then a brief glimmer of hope arrives. Now, here are your cookies. Shoo! I want my shower, and you have a paper to write for Oobleck." He began hurrying Jade towards the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Max, Mr. Atin." Jade said over her shoulder, moving through the curtain of beads under her own power.

Once she was gone, Max sighed, shaking his head. "Atin, should it be worrying we've gotten used to the...background characters just being silhouettes? She's a good kid, but it's still off putting, ya know?" Max asked Atin.

"I mean, I was always terrible with faces anyway, so it doesn't bother me. Although I have finally stopped jumping when they talk to me. It's just…weird. And given the current situation, that's saying something. At least they have different voices. I gotta try and remember who came to taco morning. They were good kids, but I think they all just have insomnia, which is why they were up." Atin made his way to bathroom, ready to start his day.

Later that day, while Max was scratching notes out on paper from yet another book Peter Port had recommended for Grimm Studies, he heard rather frantic clattering coming from the door. He turned around to see Ruby Rose wildly looking around the room, seeming as if she had sprinted full out to get to his shared room with Atin. "Can I help you, Ruby?" he asked, putting the pencil down.

"I heard there were cookies!" was her reply, causing Max to sigh, rubbing his hand against his face.

"Four hours ago, yes. The cookies have long since been doled out," Max replied. "In fact, I remember your partner walking off with a container for your team. I take it she didn't let you know?" However, before he had even finished the question, Ruby had dashed out of the room, leaving petals to flutter in her wake to the floor. "Well, alright then."

"You realize all you've done is delay the problem until Weiss comes here, demanding to know why you sicced an angry, cookie bereft Ruby on her." Atin glared at Max, hoping this wouldn't come back to bite them.

Max shrugged. "Hey, I told her to make sure to share them with her team. If she didn't share the cookies, then it's clearly her fault."

"Fair enough. But if she storms in here, it's your problem. I'll take the express exit." Atin dragged his chair over by the window, ready to leave at a moment's notice.


	9. Chapter 9

Jaune sighed, his head currently resting on his arm, sitting with his team and Team RWBY in the cafeteria for lunch. Nora was going on about some recurring dream of hers, Ren chiming in with corrections on the details she'd originally told the team. His eyes slowly closed, Jaune tempted to get a small nap in while he had the time. The last two weeks had been harder on him than any other time in his life, now that he was participating in late night training two to three times a week with the teaching assistants. At least it was helping bump his combat course grade a bit, even if some nights, he considered trying to ditch again. In all honesty, he just hadn't been brave enough to try it after the first time. Feeling a nudge, he sat up, yawning. "Huh?" he asked, looking at his partner.

"Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha asked, looking at him with concern.

He noted both teams had gotten quiet, all of them looking at him, while he shrugged, giving a tired smile. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be okay?"

"You don't seem okay," Ruby answered. "And you seem tired."

Jaune once again shrugged, shaking his head. "I'm just...adjusting to the training still. Getting homework done is a little more harrowing now, but not too bad."

"And Cardin picking on you since the first week of school isn't helping that, I'm sure," Pyrrha noted with a frown. Said tormenter, in fact, was loudly laughing, him and his team currently sitting around Velvet Scarlatina just a bit away.

Jaune gave a rather forced laugh, dismissing Pyrrha's statement with a wave. "Nah, he's not picking on me, he just likes to mess with people, is all. You know, practical jokes." With that forced laugh came a forced smile.

"He's a bully, Jaune," Ruby said, frowning at Jaune. "There've been lots of times he's picked on you. Like the rocket-locker."

"Hey, now, I didn't land all that far from the school!" Jaune defended. "In fact, I even managed to make it back on my own." This, he said with a bit of pride, for some reason. "That extra credit Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester managed to set up for me has...well, it's been more helpful than I'd thought. If a bit painful." Jaune stood up with his now empty tray, planning to drop it off at the bin. "And as for Cardin, well...it's not like I'm the only person he's a jerk to."

"Ow, that hurts!" The teams' attention was now drawn back to Velvet and Cardin, the latter currently gripping one of Velvet's rabbit ears and pulling on it. There were looks of disgust from JNPR and RWBY, while Jaune felt his hands tightening on the edges of his tray.

"See, told you they were real," Cardin laughed, giving the ear a yank.

"What a freak!" Russel exclaimed, holding his stomach as he laughed.

 _THWAP_

The sound of hand meeting shoulder silenced the laughter. Cardin turned his head with a sneer to see Max standing behind him, smiling down at the young man. "Thank you so very much, Cardin, for volunteering your time _and_ your team's time to keep me, Atin, and Ms. Goodwitch company in detention for the next week," Max said, while Cardin slowly let Velvet's ear go. "Ms. Goodwitch has been oh so very bored to tears, of late. This may just help her perk up a bit." Velvet stepped away, while Cardin stood up, a nervous smile on his face.

"Oh, Mr. Force. We were just pallin' around, nothing harmful," Cardin spoke, his hands animated as he tried explaining the situation he and his team had been caught red-handed in.

"I mean, the video seems to speak otherwise." Atin walked in from the kitchen where he had been recording the incident, knowing Max would break up the fight before one could get started.

"In fact, it's looking to me like you harassed an innocent Faunus over her ears. Now is that what it looked like to anyone else?" He looked around, hoping a member of team CRDL would be dumb enough to speak up. Regrettably they were not.

"Well, if you boys will just follow us, we'll go ahead and get you nice and comfy in Ms. Goodwitch's office to get your discipline squared away," Max commented, turning around and motioning for the team over his shoulder. Behind him, Cardin was scowling, but he followed nonetheless.

Atin fell in behind team CRDL, making sure none of them tried to slip away. "You boys should be excited. You get to try something new! During your detention, you will experience the new mandatory racial sensitivity training."

Weiss gave a brief snort, "Well, it seems those two can be useful for something besides cookies and translating."

* * *

Max strode into Goodwitch's office, tempted to just leave them there, and explain why the resident teacher assistants had just dragged them in. "Ms. Goodwitch, afternoon. I have here four bullies, ready for detention. They were harassing a second year, Velvet Scarlatina, yanking on one of her ears and I believe the word 'freak' was thrown out there, as well," Max said once Goodwitch had turned her attention towards him. That attention was now on Team CRDL, her eyes narrowed. "Atin and I just happened to be in the cafeteria at the time and Atin was collected enough to record the incident while I went in to break it up."

Atin hit the play button on his scroll, tossing onto the desk, opting to remain silent and let the evidence speak for itself, literally in this case. The members of team CRDL began to look more nervous as Goodwitch simply watched the short video, a small frown turning down the corners of her face.

Goodwitch handed Atin his scroll back, then stood up. "Well, it's a good thing we have free seats then," she said, walking over to her door and opening it. "Mr. Force, Mr. Winchester, I believe I can handle things from here. Thank you for bringing this incident to my attention."

Atin left the room, gesturing for Max to follow him out. "Ya know, I almost feel bad about this. Almost. I only wish that I could break their knees. Or maybe give them cement overshoes. That would slow them down for a while." Atin turned the corner, shaking his head.

Max snorted, clearly amused. "I just hope this doesn't make things worse," he replied. "There's a good chance this could make things harder on Jaune. Or maybe Cardin just isn't so easily deterred. We won't really know until it happens. Least we finally got that oh so vaunted proof we would have needed back home."

"Justice is served. Besides, now the other teacher's will be keeping an eye on it as well. And we probably won't need anything other than the word of a few students next time we want to nail them to the wall, so that's always nice. Anyway, I have to go play translator for Oobleck. See ya later." Atin began heading off not wanting to be late.

"Yeah, you have fun with that. I get to go check the cages for Port. Whoopee, I guess."

While Max went the other way, Atin continued on to Oobleck's room getting the scroll ready to record so that he could print out the lecture notes for the ungrateful little monsters. They had completely ignored the tip jar, thinking it was another of his 'jokes'.

* * *

"Yes! Yes, prior to the Faunus Rights Revolution-more popularly known as the Faunus War-"Oobleck began to lecture the students on the importance of remembering history, especially recent history.

 _Oh look, Jaune is taking yet another nap. Maybe I should ask Qrow to take it little easier on the kid, extra combat training won't do any good if he fails out of the normal classes._ Atin continued looking over the class, knowing that Oobleck would deal with any sleeping in his own time. _Wait a minute. This feels familiar. Cardin should be a dick right about…now._

As if on cue, Cardin flicked something at Jaune's head, an unpleasant smirk on his face.

 _Shit, that's moving pretty quick. He must have really chucked that thing. Hang on, is that an eraser he threw? That asshole, those things really hurt. Wish I could have done something to stop it, but I'm not fast enough to even try stopping him._

"OW!" Jaune snapped awake, rubbing the back of his head, turning to glare at Cardin.

"Is there a problem Mr Arc?" Oobleck once again seemingly teleported around the room, appearing in front of Jaune's desk.

"Uhhhhh, no sir. No problems." Jaune looked warily at Oobleck, hoping that was the end of it.

"Then maybe you could finally try contributing to class! Tell me, what was the key advantage the Faunus had over General Lagune and his disastrous assault?" You could practically feel Ooblecks glare at the less than model student.

"Sure thing…the uh…advantage that he had over the Faunus was..." Jaune looked frantically around the room, hoping for some help from a classmate. Pyrrha quickly cupped her hands over her eyes, hoping he would get the message.

 _I'm pretty sure the answer is night vision, but I have no idea how Jaune is supposed to get that from what Pyrrha is doing. I could help him, but that would be way too obvious to the students and Oobleck. Sorry Jaune, but main character status won't help you this time._ Atin simply stayed seated, knowing there was nothing he could do at the moment to help the boy out.

"The answer is…binoculars! Yeah, they had binoculars!" Jaune did his best to seem confident in the answer. Pyrrha slumped in her seat and slapped a hand over her face.

"No Mr. Arc, that is not correct. Perhaps if you paid a little more attention, you might know the answer. Cardin, you seem to be having quite the chuckle there, so surely you know the correct answer!" Oobleck sipped his coffee, waiting for answer.

"Well I know it's a lot easier to train an animal than a soldier," Cardin sneered from his seat in the middle of the class.

"Cardin, you've been warned about remarks like that once today, clearly your current punishment isn't enough. I'll be speaking to Miss Goodwitch about adding another week of detention to your current slate, in addition to whatever the Professor deems necessary." Atin finally spoke, glad to be able to keep things from going any farther.

"Cardin, see me after class. We will be having a discussion about your behavior in my class. Now, moving on!" Oobleck continued to sip his coffee, moving on with the rest of the Faunus War.

* * *

Jaune looked over the edge of the roof. "Hey, Pyr, I know I've complained a bit about being stressed out lately and I'm starting to feel depressed, but, uh...I'm really not feeling _that_ depressed…" he said, rubbing the back of his head. Pyrrha had dragged him up to the roof after class for some as yet unknown reason.

Pyrrha looked at him, confused for a second, before suddenly gasping and yanking him away from the edge. "Jaune! That is _not_ why I brought you up here!" she exclaimed, looking flustered. After another second, she calmed down, clearing her throat. "I know that you're already doing training with Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester...but, I'd like to help train you here on days you aren't doing that extra credit! I can help you with learning how to use your sword and shield!"

Jaune looked at his partner before looking down. "You think I need that much help?"

"No! No, that's not what I meant, Jaune."

Jaune looked up at her, looking hurt. "But you just said as much."

Pyrrha's hands fidgeted, her eyes looking at Jaune's. "Everyone needs a push from time to time, Jaune. That doesn't make you different from anyone else. The fact that you made it into Beacon speaks volumes of your capabilities!"

Jaune turned away, his voice lowering slightly. "No, Pyrrha. It doesn't. I don't belong here."

"That's a terrible thing to say, Jaune! Of course you do!"

Jaune's hand clenched into a fist briefly, before he turned around. "No, Pyrrha, I don't! I lied! I don't belong here, because I never earned my way here! I didn't go to combat school, I didn't pass any tests. I got my hands on fake transcripts and lied my way into this school and somehow lucked my way through initiation!"

Pyrrha looked sincerely confused now. "J-jaune?"

"All of this...all I ever wanted, Pyrrha, was to be a Huntsman." Jaune turned back to stare out at the campus. "My father, my grandfather, and his father before were warriors, heroes! I wanted to be that, too, but I was just...I was never good enough…"

Pyrrha walked closer to Jaune, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Then, please, let me help!"

Jaune shrugged her hand off. "I don't _want_ any more help, Pyrrha. I'm tired of being the lovable idiot, always in distress, I want to be the hero, just once! I'm already doing that extra credit crap, but that seems more like an excuse to just have someone else beaten up other than Mr. Max and Mr. Winchester!" He kept his back turned to her, letting out a heavy sigh. "I just...Pyrrha, just leave me alone...alright?"

"If that's...really what you want, Jaune…"

He listened to her footsteps grow softer. He turned to look at the door once he heard it shut. He snapped back to the ledge when he heard a low chuckle and saw Russel hanging on the ledge. "Well, what a surprise!" Russel said. He held up his scroll in one hand, waving it a bit. "Bet Cardin'll get a kick out of that little convo. I'm sure he'll have lots to talk to you about tomorrow, Jaune." As Russel disappeared from sight, Jaune felt his stomach start to twist with dread.


	10. Chapter 10

"Hey guys, don't forget that we are once again going to ignore safety standards, traditional ethics, and our moral responsibility to keep you from endangering yourselves by letting you go into the wilderness mostly unsupervised." Atin shook his head at the blank looks coming from the latest victims of Oobleck's class. "You're going on a trip to the Forever Falls, make sure you pack your bags, get some sleep, and be ready to fight." The students began to file out, their chatter eager and animated, though whether at escaping Oobleck's class or the field trip Atin was unsure.

LLL

Max leaned back against his chosen wall, exhaling in relief. "Oh, I'm so glad tonight's session is over!" he breathed, looking over at Atin and Jaune. It was eleven at night, their training session having ended a bit early so Jaune could get some sleep in preparation for the field trip.

"Stop talking. I don't have the energy to process words. Or respond. Everything hurts." Atin slumped onto the ground, his muscles trembling from exertion.

Jaune lay where he was, groaning. "So, I can leave now, right? I've still got some...things, to do before I sleep tonight," Jaune said. Though he'd asked permission to leave, he wasn't actually suiting actions to words.

"Jaune. Stop." Atin pushed himself back to his feet, locking his knee's, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "We know what Cardin's doing to you. Don't let him. He has no power over you, so why are you doing his dirty work?"

Jaune was silent, before finally replying with, "I don't know what you're talking about, sir."

"Sure you don't," Max said with a snort. "The last two weeks, you've been acting like his gopher. Not sure if you noticed, Jaune, but this school isn't actually filled to anywhere near its capacity. News travels fast in a small community, kiddo."

"I'm only blind in one eye Jaune, and the other works well enough to see you looking overworked, out of sleep, and so jumpy I'm amazed the energizer bunny isn't following you around. So I'll make this real simple. Stop. Doing. Cardin's. Homework. For crying out loud, we grade the papers. You think we didn't notice when all his work suddenly started getting turned in with your handwriting? Or why the quality of his work got way worse? Although to be charitable, yours is worse, too, so I'm willing to put that down to overwork." Atin stared down at the defeated looking boy, feeling sorry for him.

Jaune sighed, closing his eyes. "I messed up. Really bad. Cardin's got me on a short leash as a result and Pyrrha isn't talking to me…" He opened his eyes and sat up, looking at the TA's. "I'm starting to think I should have never come to this school. I feel like such a failure…"

"And?" Max asked. "You're not a failure, Jaune, you just made a mistake. It's gonna happen. Besides, you're a leader now. You aren't allowed to fail."

"You fail, your friends die. If you get lucky you also die. Otherwise, you have to live knowing you killed them. So get off the floor, square your shoulders and remember something important. Ozpin picked _you._ Not Ren, not Nora, and not Pyrrha. He picked you over a tournament winning champion. He had a reason for that. You have the potential not to just be a good leader. You can be a great leader if you just get over yourself and stop being afraid. Learn to ask for help when you need it, and learn to lean on your team. I've done the whole 'I'm a man and don't need others help, and I don't need to talk about my emotions or problems' thing. You know what that did to me? It made me an angry, lonely, bitter cynic. For some reason I was lucky to have a friend literally beat some sense into me and tell me to knock it off. Right now, I'm too tired to hit you, but I think Qrow's done a good enough job for me. So you're gonna leave this room, walk back to your team, tell them you fucked up, tell them you're sorry, and then you're gonna ask them real nice to help pull your butt out of the fire. Got it?" Atin took a deep breath, hoping that the rant would get through to Jaune.

"As for that leash you mentioned. You've stuck with this training for a month now, Jaune. You can stick up for yourself by this point," Max chimed in. "You need to draw a line somewhere. Before things result in someone actually getting hurt. Whatever he's got over you, it's only got as much power as _you_ are willing to give it. Think on what we've said, alright? And stay alert on your field trip. That place is crawling with Grimm. Good night, Jaune." Max finally stood up, recovered enough to make the walk back to his shared suite with Atin.

"Last piece of advice for the night. You are gonna screw up. I sure have. But the important thing is this. Your mistakes only have as much power as you give them. Own them, control them, look at them, and learn from them. Making a mistake is only something to be ashamed of if you let others make you feel ashamed. Don't listen to them." Atin swung the door open, gesturing for Max to precede him out.

Jaune stared at the slowly closing door, giving a slight yawn. His scroll beeped, prompting a groan as he opened it to reveal a late night message from Cardin.

LLL

"That was a mistake, Jauney boy," Cardin said with a sneer. His chestplate was now smeared with the sap the students were supposed to collect, courtesy of the jar Jaune had thrown at the bully.

Jaune's only reaction was to glare at Cardin. As Dove and Sky grabbed Jaune's shoulders, he grinned. A month of training with Qrow had taught the young man how to snark when the occasion called for it. "What, are you so scared of me, you need more than just one of you, Cardin?" Jaune asked. Cardin stepped forward, and drove his fist home into Jaune, who simply tensed his stomach and took the blow with a grunt. "Come on Cardin, you can do better than that. Or at least I hope you can, or we might be here till the sun goes down." Jaune fixed a crooked grin to his face, confident that he could take far worse punishment. If he could take a punch from a drunken Huntsman without passing out, he could certainly take a punch from a sober one in training.

Cardin glared at Jaune, grabbing him by his collar. "What, you think you're a big strong man now that you can take a hit?" He cocked his fist back, ready to sink it into Jaune's face.

"Do whatever you want," Jaune said, fixing his own glare onto Cardin. "But you leave my team and my friends alone!"

Cardin began winding up again, but was interrupted by a low growl coming from the bushes, and a massive spiked Ursa emerged from the tree's. It towered over the students, who stared in shock. The Ursa sniffed the air a few times, before staring straight at Cardin and letting out a roar that caused the students very bones to vibrate with the ferocity of it.

"That's a big Ursa!" shouted Russel, who began fleeing with Sky and Dove.

Cardin remained rooted to the spot, frozen with fear. As if Russel's voice had been a trigger, the Ursa slammed it's paws into Cardin, sending him shooting off to the side. The Ursa stared down at Jaune, who had been dropped the ground when the rest of team CDRL abandoned their leader and his latest victim. A quiet sniffling could be heard in the clearing, as the massive Ursa looked at Jaune, and then promptly ignored him, lumbering over towards Cardin and the sap smeared on his armor. Finally snapping out of his fear induced daze, Cardin brought his mace up in an attempt to defend himself, only for the massive beast to swat it aside.

Cardin turned to run, aiming for the nearby treeline, only to have the Ursa take a leap, clearing his head easily. The Ursa turned to face Cardin, swiping down and knocking the student back with its massive claw. Cardin turned his body, trying to crawl away on knees and hand, his other hand now gently held against his ribs, checking for damage. With another roar, the Ursa once again raised a paw, Cardin turning his body once more in fear. Eyes closed, he waited for the hit, only to be surprised when he heard the sound of metal ringing out. He opened his eyes to see Jaune's back, Jaune's shield holding the Ursa's massive paw back.

 _Lower center of gravity, push off,_ Jaune thought to himself, adjusting his shield to let the Ursa's paw slide off and to the side, his sword hand swinging at the Ursa, hitting its stomach. With a pained roar, the Grimm took a swipe at Jaune, who blocked, letting himself go with the blow. Jaune stood his ground as the Grimm roared once more. He would win this. He had to, otherwise, Cardin might die with him. He steeled himself for the fight, his fingers tightening on his sword's grip. He ran at the Ursa, being batted away, repeating the motion and reaction twice more. The Ursa raised onto its feet, Jaune swinging his sword upwards. _Keep an eye on its paws, just like Qrow taught me when fighting with fists,_ he thought, raising his shield to catch the Ursa's massive paw swinging down toward him. There was a moment when he thought he felt his arm suddenly grow lighter, his shield raising to stop the Ursa's paw, while his sword cleaved clean through the neck of the beast. He took a few breaths, trying to calm down, the adrenaline slowly ebbing away. Once he could breathe regularly, he put his weapon away, walking back over to Cardin, offering his hand. Once Cardin accepted it, Jaune pulled the other teenager up to his feet. Before letting go, he stared Cardin in the eyes, glaring. "Don't ever mess with my friends again, Cardin. Got it?" Jaune stared hard at Cardin, refusing to be the first to look away.

Cardin simply nodded, giving Jaune's hand a quick shake. "Yeah. Yeah, no problem Jaune," Cardin replied, releasing Jaune's hand.

LLL

"Max, where the hell is Jaune? They should have been back from the trip by now. If he takes any longer, I might actually be worried." Atin was pacing back and forth in the center of the training room.

Max watched Atin pace from the floor, sitting cross legged. "They only just got back last night and it's a weekend. Besides, Qrow isn't even here yet. The kid's still got time," Max replied. "

A few minutes went by and the door opened to reveal Jaune followed by Pyrrha, much to Atin's surprise. "Jaune, just because you bring someone else here doesn't mean you can get out of it. And why did you bring Pyrrha of all people? Pretty sure she doesn't need extra credit. In any class."

"Um, well...I thought Pyrrha could help me with my sword and shield technique when we get to the combat portion of the training sessions," Jaune replied, rubbing the back of his head. "That...is okay, right?"

"I mean, we don't have a problem with it, and I assume she doesn't. But you're the one that gets to explain why she's here to Qrow. " Atin sat down on the floor, tired of standing after his bout of worried pacing.

Jaune's only answer was to whimper a bit, while Pyrrha simply looked confused by that short exchange.


	11. Chapter 11

"In summary, be polite and don't break the law, kids. Remember, if you break the law, you don't go to Beacon. Oh, and be nice to the exchange students." Atin snapped his scroll closed, and started heading towards the door of the classroom.

"But…Sir, won't they have our student ID? If we did hypothetically break the law?" One of the sea of intermediate faces asked.

"If you get caught breaking the law, you _will_ be expelled. I can't believe you even have to ask that." Atin shook his head, and was dismayed by the revelation, that there were in fact, stupid questions.

LLL

Max and Atin were walking behind Team RWBY through Vale, the group of six slowly making their way to the docks. "Appreciate you girls escorting us poor, defenseless, weak civvies into Vale," Max said, making a note on his scroll before putting it away.

Yang snorted a laugh at that. "Good one, sir," she replied, shaking her head at Max's obvious joke. "But you know, you didn't need to bribe Ruby with an extra batch of cookies, right?"

"Oh that wasn't a bribe Yang. That was payback for what you guys did in Port's class. Max was the one who had to clean it up. That's why he gave her extra sugary sugar cookies," Atin commented from the back of the group.

The only response was a nervous laugh from Yang. "Extra sugar? That's a pretty bad joke, Mr. Winchester," she said, just barely avoiding to stutter. After a few moments of silence, she turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. "Sir?"

There was no reply from either teaching assistant, only a not in any way suspicious amount of whistling.

"So," Ruby finally piped up, the only one of her team not going pale at the thought of the leader on a sugar high, "who was that book guy?"

"Oh, that was Tukson," Max replied. "He's been supplying me with some teaching material for the last handful of months. Good guy." He nodded at Blake. "And is able to get his hands on some rather obscure material. How's that smut treating you, Ms. Belladonna?"

Blake began to turn crimson from a mix of shame and fury. "It's not 'smut'! Its romance, and it's treating me quite well, thank you very much Mister Force."

"Your vehement denial says otherwise."

"Also Blake, I tried reading one of your 'romance novels', and I have seen porn with more romance than that book. Also, I left the copy under your trash can, where it belongs." Atin slowly slide behind Max, ready to use him as a shield.

"Anyways," Max continued before Blake could retort once more, "thought maybe he'd be interested in working as Beacon's librarian. Position's open and it's a pretty good pay raise."

"Is it really that big of a difference?" Ruby asked.

"Well, working at Beacon pays pretty well. At least, compared to back home, it pays well."

"Also, hazard pay helps a ton. I mean really, its time and half. And if we have to work overtime, it stacks. Combat class on Friday's is amazing for my bank account, if not my blood pressure." Atin chimed in, feeling it was once again safe.

"Hold on, why do teaching assistants at a combat academy get hazard pay? You two don't even do any field work, why do you get hazard pay?" Weiss asked, unable or unwilling to hide the annoyance in her tone.

"Well technically Max and I are civilians, so there's that, and also, we are training seventeen to twenty year old kids on how to kill things for a living. These same students are permitted to wander around the campus, and the nearby civilian town, with loaded weapons. Need I go on?" Atin had caught up with the group just in time for his second favorite activity, sarcasm.

"Or should we show the scars from the stray shots we've had to deal with as proof? Got a good one on my forearm here," Max added in.

"Hell, we have to teach Nora! That girl alone qualifies us for hazard pay. Don't get me wrong, she's very kind, but I am outright terrified of that girl and her obsession with things that go boom," Atin spoke up, shuddering with fear.

Weiss appeared to consider something for a moment, before nodding. "I will concede you those points, I suppose," she said. As they neared the destination, Weiss appeared to speed up a bit, now smiling.

"Well, you seem rather excited, Weiss. Unusually so," Max noted.

"I don't think I've ever seen Weiss smile this much…It's actually kind of creepy." Ruby frowned a little, giving Weiss a sidelong glance.

Weiss turned to look at Max and Ruby, her smile clearly present on her face. "How could you _not_ smile? A festival dedicated to the cultures of the world! There will be dances! Parades! A tournament! Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into this event is simply _breathtaking_!"

Yang crossed her arms, sighing at her teammate's response. "You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring."

"Quiet, you!"

As they approached the docks after a moment, Yang once again spoke. "Remind me again why we're spending our Friday afternoon visiting the stupid docks?"

"And why you absolutely needed me and Atin here after helping us with our small errands?" Max cut in.

"Ugh, they smell like fish!" Ruby remarked, pinching her nose closed.

"The docks smell of fish? _Gasp!_ Max, we need to get to the bottom of this mystery!" Atin rolled his eyes at the 15 year old.

"This must be the work of an enemy Semblance!" Max quipped.

"It must be quite strong to affect an entire area like the docks! Girls, you have to spread out and find the person causing this. Max and I will supervise. You will be graded on the amount of time it takes." Atin leaned back against the railing, breathing in the salty air, comforted by the fact that no matter what world you were on, the ocean smelled horrible.

"In all seriousness, what are we doing here?" Max asked, choosing to lean on the railing using his arms. Granted, he and Atin already knew the answer, but it never hurt to let Weiss have her little moments occasionally.

"I've heard that students visiting from Vacuo will be arriving by ship today. And, as a _representative_ of Beacon, I feel as though it is my _solemn_ duty to welcome them to this _fine_ kingdom!" Weiss declared, her eyes roaming the docks for likely passenger transports.

"She wants to spy on them so she'll have the upper hand in the tournament." Blake rolled her eyes at Weiss's lack of subtlety.

"You can't prove that!" Weiss scoffed, putting on a hurt look.

"You know Weiss, if you want the inside scoop on the other team, I have low morals and can be convinced to 'lose' my scroll for a few hours, which happens to contain all the visiting teams information. I'll even give you a 'not a troublemaker' discount!" Atin hopped the Schnee heiress would take him up on the offer, Taco day was going to get more expensive with more students.

Before Max could reprimand Atin, Ruby grabbed the group's attention with a gasped, "Whoa." Turning around, they saw a Dust shop cordoned off with excessive amounts of yellow police tape. They walked over, seeing two detectives currently on-site. "Excuse me, sirs? What happened here?"

"I mean, besides a robbery. Or the murder of several yards worth of police tape, not sure which though!" Atin eyed the broken glass on the street, wondering why the criminals bothered smashing the windows.

"Please excuse him, he has brain damage, officers. Anyways, _is_ this a robbery or something more, uh, violent?" Max piped in.

"That brain damage _only_ affects my depth perception thank you very much. It's extremely rude to imply I am unaware of the fact that I'm a sarcastic ass. I work hard to be insufferable." Atin assumed a hurt look, unable to stop the corner of his mouth from twitching upwards.

"Robbery, indeed. Second shop to be hit this week, but oddly enough, no money was taken. Just the Dust. Who needs that much Dust, anyways? What would you even need that much for?" One detective, wearing black sunglasses with slick-backed black hair, was the one to answer.

"Party?" Max offered.

"Fireworks?" Atin suggested.

"Oh, ballroom dancing!"

"Don't be absurd, clearly its for the sickest rave ever." Atin shook his head at Max.

"What about becoming an unstoppable warrior by shoving crystals into my body at seemingly random spots?" Max looked at Atin, seemingly daring him to top that snarky comment. 

"With that much Dust, you could blow up half the city. Or the wall." Atin felt queasy at the last comment, knowing the only reason he got away with it was that no one would take him seriously.

Max threw his arms up in surrender. "Alright, you win, man. Can't top that."

"Or maybe it's just the White Fang, jackasses." One of the detectives finally spoke up, though both of them looked quite annoyed at the two jokers.

"Ya know what I think? I think we don't get paid enough to deal with this kind of shit," the other detective announced, walking away from the peanut gallery.

"Hmph! The White Fang. What an awful bunch of degenerates!" Weiss announced, her nose rising into the air.

Hand on hip, Blake stared at Weiss, asking, "What's your problem?"

Weiss turned to her, her tone of voice somewhat condescending. "My problem? I simply don't care for the criminally insane."

"The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths. They're a collection of misguided Faunus." Blake's voice began to grow hard, and her eyes narrowed.

"Misguided? They want to wipe Humanity off the face of the planet!" Weiss seemed to be growing more upset.

"So then they're very misguided. Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"

Ruby interrupted at this point, saying, "Hmm... Blake's got a point. Besides, the police never caught that Torchwick guy I ran into a few months ago... Maybe it was him."

Weiss replied, her eyes closed, tone almost lecturing. "That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum." Ignoring Blake's growing anger, Weiss put in a final, "Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal."

Yang was the one to speak this time, looking at Weiss, clearly uncomfortable to be hearing the argument taking place between her teammates. "That's not necessarily true..." 

"Hey, stop that Faunus!" An angry voice cried out from the direction of the docks.

The group ran back to the docks just in time to see a monkey faunus running on the deck of a ship that had just arrived. "Aaaaand that, kids, is why stereotypes exist," Max said, watching Sun run from some sailors.

"Stereotypes exist because stupid people do stupid things, and nothing makes for a good story like stupidity," Atin growled in annoyance.

"Thanks for the ride guys! Haha!" Sun shouted, leaping off the boat and hitting the ground running.

"You no good stowaway!" Another sailor shouted at him from the deck.

"Hey, if I was a no good stowaway, I would have been caught! I'm a _great_ stowaway!" Sun shouted, hanging off a lampost from his tail. A rock sailed towards Sun, which he dodged with ease.

"Get down from there!" The two detectives from earlier had apparently heard the commotion as well, and decided they were paid enough to catch stowaways.

Atin quickly moved to a spot just in front of Blake, knowing what was coming. Seeing what Atin was doing, Max moved to a spot just slightly beside Blake, setting up an odd looking triangle between him, Blake, and Atin.

Sun swung himself to the top of the lampost, laughing at the detectives underneath him, before leaping off and running away. As he began to pass team RWBY he made sure to run in front of Blake giving her a wink before abruptly stumbling forward, running throat first into Max's extended arm. Max then curled his arm, bringing Sun into an impromtpu headlock, smiling at the detectives as they slowed down.

"So, do we get our junior detective badges now?" Atin smirked at the two officers, having far too much fun with the whole situation.

"As you soon as you hand that kid over, sure. Guess you two can do something other than make terrible jokes, which is good for you," one of the detectives said.

"We can't do that, officers. Believe it or not, he's an exchange student to Beacon, here for the Vytal Festival," Max explained, keeping Sun in the headlock. "I'm Max Force, a faculty member of Beacon Academy. Young Sun here is on the roster of exchange students from Shade Academy and we were asked by Headmaster Ozpin to greet him, as he decided to grab a ticket to arrive earlier than other students. He's a bit of a jokester, which his headmaster already warned us about." After a moment of silence, just enough time that the detectives could process what Max had said, he offered one last bit of comment. "If you'd like to call Beacon to confirm this, I'd be glad to let you use my scroll. Glynda Goodwitch and Headmaster Ozpin are both on speed dial, as is the main line for Beacon itself."

"Use mine. My coworker needs to keep attention focused on restraining the little miscreant." Atin proffered his scroll, already set to call Ozpin, simply awaiting confirmation.

"Alright, wiseguys, why don't we call your little bluff here," the detective with green hair said. He took the proffered scroll, looking at the number already pulled up. His partner was already on a separate scroll, confirming the number.

"Numbers match. Go ahead and call," the black haired detective gave the go ahead.

Pressing the call button, the scroll was put on speaker. After two rings, there was a click. "Mr. Winchester. I wasn't expecting any calls. Is there a problem down in Vale?" Coming from the other end of the line was the recognizable voice of Ozpin, Headmaster of Beacon Academy.

"No _real_ problems sir, I just need to confirm that a, uhhhh…" Atin looked down at a very depressed Sun, "Sun, right? Sun Wukong?" Sun gave the strange man a quizzical look, but slowly nodded his head. "Yeah, I just need to be sure that Sun Wukong is on the list of visiting students for the Vytal Festival."

There was the sound of papers being shuffled and even drawers opening and closing for a few seconds. "Ah, yes. Right here. Has he already arrived?"

"He has." Atin made sure to shoot the young Faunus a glare, mostly for the benefit of the attending officers.

"My, the ship he was chartered on certainly made good time, as they promised, then. Would you mind escorting him, then? I know I asked you to meet him, but should he wish to see other sites in Vale today, I'd appreciate it if he had a guide or two."

"Of course, professor, we'll make sure to keep a close eye. And I don't think Sun will have a problem with that, right Sun?" Atin crouched down by Sun hoping he would play along.

"Oh, uh, yeah! Sure thing! It would be great to get a tour, I wouldn't want to get lost or something!" Sun hurriedly chimed in.

"Well, glad to hear it," Ozpin replied. "If you'll excuse me, Mr. Winchester." And with that, the scroll clicked once more, the call ending from Ozpin's side.

The two detectives looked at each other, before looking at the assistant teachers in disbelief. They handed Atin his scroll back. "Well, I...suppose you're free to go, then," green said, clearing his throat. "But in the future, please don't joke about breaking the laws, young man. There won't always be someone there to explain the situation like there was today." The two officers walked away, shaking their heads in confusion.

Once the detectives were out of earshot, Max released his hold on Sun, letting the student stand up straight finally. "Uh, thanks for that save, I guess," Sun said, rolling his neck a bit.

"Boy, you're lucky we were here. What is wrong with you? Your school paid for a ticket to get you here, why would you stowaway on a _cargo freighter_?" Atin glared at the student, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Well I-" Sun began to offer an explanation only to be cut off by Atin.

"Stop. I don't actually care what you were thinking. It was stupid. You not only endangered yourself, you almost threw away your future, you almost ruined your team's chance to compete in the Vytal Festival, and you almost ruined your school's reputation. You do something that stupid again without a very good reason and so help me I will throw you off Beacon tower." Atin fumed that anyone could be that stupid just for some fun. It annoyed him even more that Sun would have gotten away with it.

Max watched Sun slump at the lecture. After a moment of awkward silence, Max coughed, getting everyone's attention. "Anyways. Welcome to Vale, Sun Wukong. Why don't we show you around a bit, then we'll head to Beacon and figure out where you and your team are gonna be stuck once they get here? Any against?" When no one voiced dissension, though Atin appeared ready with some snide remark, Max clapped his hands. "Let's get walking, then. I believe there's a nice little cafe a short ways down that street."

"OH! I know a great place! Follow me!" Ruby announced, disappearing around the corner in a blur of petals."Owowowowowow". Ruby's pained voice echoed around the corner, causing the group to hurry around the corner after her, to see Ruby on the ground, rubbing her forehead and rolling back and forth, with an unnamed girl simply laying there on her back, perhaps concussed.

"Are you two alright?" Yang asked, leaning over to help Ruby up. "This is why you can't just go tearing off around blind corners Rubes." Her admonishment finished, she turned her attention to the other girl, who hadn't moved at all.

Max watched this little exchange, wondering to himself how much of what happened in the show would happen here. This had, after all, been a somewhat important scene in the show.

"I'm wonderful! Thank you for asking." Penny announced from the ground

"Do you... wanna get up?" Yang asked slowly, a hint of nervousness creeping into her voice.

"Yes! My name is Penny! It's a pleasure to meet you!" Penny leaped to her feet causing the small crowd to jump back.

"Hi Penny. I'm Ruby."

"I'm Weiss."

"Blake."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Blake smacked Yang on the side, shooting her a glare. "Oh, I'm Yang."

"It's a pleasure to meet you!" Penny cheerily announced

"You already said that." mentioned Weiss

"So I did!" Penny declared with undiminished enthusiasm.

"Sorry for running into you! Take care, friend!" Ruby waved cheerily as everyone began to leave.

"She was... _weird_..." Yang shuddered slightly, fighting the urge to look over his shoulder.

"She certainly was an odd one" Weiss agreed

"What did you call me?" Penny asked, having suddenly appeared in front of the group, and Weiss in particular.

"Oh, I'm really sorry, I definitely didn't think you heard me!" Yang at least the grace to look ashamed

"No, not you. You **!** " Penny announced, walking up to Ruby seemingly unconcerned with being called weird.

" _Me?_ I-I don't know. I, what I, um, uh..."" Ruby began stuttering, looking around nervously.

"You called me 'friend'! Am I _really_ your friend?" Penny was now almost nose to nose with Ruby, staring deep into her eyes.

"Uuuum…" Ruby looked at her team over Penny's shoulder. Her team was frantically shaking their heads back and forth, realizing what would happen. "Y-Yeah, sure! Why not?"

"Sen-sational! We can paint our nails, and try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!" Penny seemed even more enthusiastic than before, if that was possible.

"Oh, is this what it was like when you met me?" Ruby looked at Weiss, somewhat ashamed.

"No - she seems _far_ more coordinated." Weiss smirked at Ruby.

"So... what are you doing in Vale?" Yang asked Penny.

"I'm here to fight in the tournament." Penny proudly declared.

"Wait, _you're_ fighting in the tournament?" Weiss asked incredulously.

"I'm combat ready!" A sharp salute accompanied Penny's statement.

"Forgive me, but you hardly look the part." Weiss could not contain her skepticism.

"Says the girl wearing a dress," Blake couldn't help but remark.

"It's a combat skirt!" Weiss' arms were almost as cross as her tone

Ruby appeared next to Weiss in blur of petals, giving her a low-five. "Yeah!"

"Wait a minute. If you're here for the tournament, does that mean you know this monkey-tailed...rapscallion?"

"Sun, come with me. This is gonna take them awhile." Atin began walking away, having already given up on preventing the argument. "In the meantime, you and I are gonna have chat about the difference between 'fun' and criminal actions".

Max followed Atin, gesturing for Sun to follow as well. "Now, the first thing in those cases should always be you asking yourself the question of 'is this illegal?' If your first instinct is yes, guess what you probably _shouldn't_ be doing, Sun," Max said, deciding that a headstart on the lecture would be a good way to pass the time.

"Also ask questions 'does this have a high chance of getting me expelled if caught?' If the answer is also yes, don't do that," Atin added on, while mumbling under his breath, "or just don't get caught."

Sun simply nodded his head along, confused by the last fifteen minutes of his life.

 **LLL**

A knock on the door frame of their suite grabbed the attention of Beacon's teaching assistants. Max recognized the silhouette of Jade at the bead curtain. "What's up, Jade? Cookies are already doled out for the day, you know," Max said.

"Oh, um, no, sir, I'm not here about those," Jade replied.

"For the _last_ time, transcripts are in the bin. I swear to God, I'm gonna buy an actual neon sign for that thing," Atin's voice echoed out from his room.

"It's not that either, Mr. Winchester," Jade said, rubbing the back of her head. "Um...I might have overheard team RWBY discussing plans to go looking for one of their teammates. I think they said she's been missing since Friday, and, um, this, kinda, well, seemed like something faculty should know about."

"Max! It finally happened! A student with common sense! We found one." Emerging from his room, Atin shoved his feet into his shoes, trying to conceal his annoyance with team RWBY. "Come on Max, we better go stop them."

Max scoot his chair back, sighing. "Of course this shit still happens. Thanks for bringing this to our attention, Jade. Go on back to your room, we'll take care of this," Max said. "Someone's in for another lecture."

Atin and Max left their room, knowing full well they could not, in fact, stop team RWBY, despite the damage that would be done to the docks. "So, where should we watch from? And should we call the cops?" Atin asked Max as they made their down the hall

"Well, assuming shit hasn't blown up yet, we can attempt to call the cops. Dunno if our ruleset will let us, but the worst that can happen is we die, so probably worth a shot at least."

"I'll make the call once we get there. Can't have them arrive too early. They would be at risk of death then. Don't want that on me." Atin quickly poked his head into team RWBY's dorm, confirming their absence.

 **LLL**

An awkward silence filled the air at the docks. After all was said and done and with some property damage committed, Max and Glynda were finalizing details with the police officers, while Atin stood with team RWBY and Sun, glaring at the children with irritation clear on his face. The students, for their part, had the decency to at least look somewhat ashamed. The next week of detention would be a long one for them.


	12. Chapter 12

The door to team RWBY's dorm swung open, Yang, Weiss, and Blake looking up from their respective pastimes to see their team leader. "Guys… I made a mistake. A really big mistake. I'm gonna get expelled." Ruby looked at her team, her face ashen.

"Ruby… what did you do? It can't be _that_ bad. They let a former terrorist come here. They even let Jaune in! Jaune! He means well, but that boy was hopeless for months." Weiss got up from her bed, looking more annoyed than anything else.

"Yeah, come on Sis. I'm sure that we can explain to Professor Ozpin. How bad can it be? It's not like you killed someone, right?" Yang smiled, sure that her sister was just overreacting to whatever she had done.

"..." Ruby's face somehow turned even more white, and she slumped to the ground, curling into a ball and starting to give small, near silent sobs that wracked her entire body. She began to mutter quietly, " I didn't mean to." Over and over she muttered the refrain, her team standing in shocked silence.

"Okay Ruby, joke's over. Not funny. Seriously. Stop it." Yang began to look nervous as her sister simply stayed curled in a ball, crying and chanting.

Weiss and Blake continued to stare, dumbfounded by what Ruby had said.

"Ruby, Yang is right. This joke is in extremely poor taste. I demand that you stop it at once!" Weiss stamped her foot, annoyance turning quickly to anger on her face.

"I…I think she actually killed someone. She's in shock. Ruby, what happened?" Blake crouched down next to her catatonic squad leader, gently shaking her arm.

After a few moments, Ruby's uncurled herself, looking at her team with tears still rolling down her face. "I-I was just fixing up Ember Celica," Ruby began.

(Flashback Start)

 _Yang keeps complaining that the trigger mechanism is sticking in Ember Celica. This new hair trigger should fix the problem, but I have to be careful not to make it to sensitive. Of course, maybe if she wasn't so rough on these gauntlets, maybe things like the trigger mechanism wouldn't get beat up so fast._ Ruby carefully finished reassembling the gauntlet before placing it on her arm to test the balance.

"Ruby? Are you in here? Hello?" Atin's voice echoed through the mostly empty workshop.

"I'm over here Mr. Winchester!" _I hope he isn't gonna tell me how dumb we were. Again. For the 23rd time._ Ruby began making her way to the firing range to test the new trigger, fishing a few shells from her pocket to load Ember Celica.

"I just wanted to talk to you about the docks without Goodwitch looking over my shoulder. While I think what you guys did was dumb, I also think sticking your necks out for Blake like that was what a great friend would do, even if you should have ya know, called the police or told a teacher when one of your teammates was missing for days." Atin followed Ruby towards the firing range, bemoaning the fact that hunters didn't use ear protection, since Aura existed.

Ruby stepped up to the range, settling Ember Celica as firmly as she could on her wrist, taking aim at the much abused Atlesian knight torso that was one of the targets. She gently applied pressure to the trigger, letting out a satisfied grunt at the sparks that flew off the target dummy as the slug hit home. She pumped her arm in victory, but as she did so, the ill-fitting gauntlet slipped off her hand, falling towards the floor. Atin saw the weapon as it began tumbling and reached to try and grab, hoping to prevent an accident. At the same time, Ruby realized her mistake and also began reaching for the gauntlet, upset with herself for being so careless. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Mr. Winchester also reaching for the gauntlet. She dived to the floor, snatching the gauntlet up moments before it would have hit the ground. She tucked into a roll, in order to avoid slamming face first into the hard concrete floor. As she came out of the roll, she was facing Mr. Winchester. The momentum of the roll caused her to bump into him, causing Ember Celica to go off. Ruby watched in slow motion, horrified as the slug flew towards Mr. Winchester, the slug tearing right through his Aura, or perhaps it wasn't even up to begin with. His upper throat and head disappeared in a red spray, the far wall turning crimson.

(Flashback End)

Ruby had recovered somewhat, having gone from curled up on the floor to slumped against the wall and capable of talking. She remained white as sheet, and she looked like a coiled spring, visibly tense. Almost as soon as she finished talking she went back to being silent, and nothing her team did could get anything more out of her.

"Soooo… what do we now guys?" Yang looked at the other two members of her team, still trying to process what her little sister had said.

"I mean, we have to go try and explain this to Ozpin. It's not like we can hide the… disappearance of one the teaching assistants. If we explain that it was an accident, maybe she won't face charges." Weiss was in damage control mode, something that had been drilled into her as the heir to the Schnee dust company. "Besides, Ruby can hardly be blamed for this. Why would Mr. Winchester not have his Aura active at the _firing range_ of all places?"

There was a knock at the door, causing everyone but Ruby to jump a bit. "Girls? Anyone in?" came Max's voice from the other side of the door. The team all looked at each other, Yang gesturing at the door wildly, while Weiss shook her head vigorously. "I have a key, you know. Knocking's a formality I'm extending out of basic courtesy." Max's call from the other side resulted in Blake facepalming.

Blake inhaled, then exhaled deeply, going to the door and plastering a fake smile over her face. Opening the door, she greeted Max, "Afternoon, sir. To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"Well, I'm looking for Ruby, actually." Max looked over Blake's shoulder, noting Yang and Weiss had rushed to the wall. "And I see she's behind you two. Okay. As cute as it is you're all sticking up for each other, I'm gonna need her to explain the mess she made."

Max's nonchalance threw the team for a loop. This wasn't what they had expected when he mentioned looking for Ruby. "Did she not clean up after herself in the kitchen, sir? We can take care of that!" Yang piped up, relieved that Max wasn't here about his colleague's death.

"What? Oh, no, I mean at the firing range. There's blood _everywhere_. On the ceiling, on the wall, on the floor. It's an impressive spray, really."

The entire team froze, amazed at how calm Max seemed. "Are you alright Sir? You seem to be awfully calm about this. Shouldn't you be more concerned that… someone is dead." Blake asked, wondering if he was denial.

"Hm? It's just Atin," Max replied. "If it had been someone other than him or myself, sure, there'd be cause for concern."

"Oh wonderful, now we have to explain to the headmaster that we killed one teaching assistant and caused the other to suffer a mental break. We are all going to get expelled. I can't be expelled! My Father will never let me hear the end of this! I won't be able to go to another Hunter academy!" Weiss was now beginning to panic, realizing there was no amount of damage control that could salvage the situation.

Max crossed his arms, one eyebrow raised. "No, I'm not suffering a mental breakdown. Weiss, perhaps you should lay down for a bit, before your adrenaline really gets going."

"Max… Shouldn't you be more upset? Atin is _dead._ Weren't you two dating?" Yang asked, confused at the lack of emotion from Max.

"I...what? Wait, are those rumors still going around?!" Max looked at Yang, clearly surprised by her last question. "Damn it, I thought we quashed those last month." He sighed, clearly more upset at the rumors of his sexuality than Atin's death.

"But even if you weren't, you two lived together! Surely you're at least a little upset about this. I would like to reiterate, your friend is _dead._ " Weiss was equally confused as she was angry, unable to understand how anyone could be so callous.

"Well, sure, for _now_."

"Are...are you delusional?!" Weiss yelled, the last straw finally breaking.

A quiet voice broke the silence "Please stop yelling Weiss." Ruby, who everyone had seemingly forgotten, finally spoke up. "Just…leave him alone. He needs to deal with this. Just like I do."

"Ummm… I think maybe you guys should close your door. I'm pretty sure we're the only ones here, but I doubt you want anyone else to overhear what we did." A very nervous looking Pyrrha was standing outside in the hallway, looking into team RWBY's dorm.

"Did… Did we hear right? Ruby, you _killed_ Mr. Winchester? Why?" Jaune asked, his face a mixture of concern and horror.

As Ruby's face scrunched up, apparently more tears in the tank, Max looked at Jaune disapprovingly. "Really, Jaune? That's what you lead with? Not even a simple 'was it an accident' or 'how are you handling it?' Come on, kid, have _some_ tact, for fuck's sake," Max chided.

Ren remained silent, as unflappable as ever. Nora, for once, had nothing to say. She was unusually reserved, even her normally irrepressible spirit not immune to the situation. Team JNPR stepped into the room, Nora closing the door behind her.

"How did it happen Ruby? Was it an accident?" Ren finally spoke up, determined to find out more.

"Of course it was accident! You think she's some kind of murder?" Yang practically screamed at Ren, glad for an excuse to let some of her anger out.

"Yang, calm down. Shouting will actually get us nowhere here. Might make you feel better, but ultimately, it isn't constructive," Max interposed himself between Yang and Ren. "Alright, everyone take a breath. If you have something to say or ask, think before you do so."

The door began to swing open, prompting an annoyed shout from Weiss. "Who is it now? How many people are going to come in here?"

The door swung open all the way "You know Weiss, Max is right. You guys shouting will get you nowhere. Not very constructive at all." Atin strode into the room, perfectly intact, to the shock of eight of the room's current inhabitants.

A blur of petal's shot across the room, slamming into Atin. "Ohmygoshyouaren'tdeadI'msosorrypleasedon'tbemadatme!" Ruby wrapped herself around Atin's lower chest, causing him to stumble backwards a step.

"Get off! Yang, a little help here? I can't really move. Someone? Anyone? For the love of all things holy, would someone get this kid off me?" Atin was struggling to maintain his balance, the addition of a one hundred plus pounds of excited teenager throwing him.

"Are you sure you killed him? He seems fine," Ren spoke up, staring at the sight before him of a teaching assistant trying to throw a student off of him.

"But… But how? Ruby _saw_ you die!" Yang exclaimed, her face a mask of confusion.

"What is going on here? I demand an explanation!" Weiss defaulted to anger, now that it was clear there was not, in fact, anyone dead.

"I would also like to get some answers," Pyrrha chimed in.

"I'm so confused:" Jaune said, shaking his head back and forth.

"Would someone please get Ruby _off of my chest_. This isn't funny people." Atin had managed to find an equilibrium of sorts, but he still visibly shaky. "Also, Max why did you immediately explain the reasons that me being dead was _not something they needed to be concerned about._ "

"I figured the nonchalance would tip them off. Shows what I know, I guess," Max replied, shrugging.

"Max, even _I_ know better than that. Ruby thought she killed me! Well I mean technically, she _did_ kill me, but in all fairness to her, it was an accident. Clean too, I didn't feel a thing. It was just like falling asleep. Anyway, that's besides the point. The point is that if someone doesn't get Ruby off of me right now, you all get detention." Atin futilely tried to pry the excited girl off of him, unable to get any leverage.

Yang finally recovered enough from her shock to comply, and began trying to pry her sister off of Atin.

"Thank you. Finally someone listens to me. Now, all of you sit. How much did Max explain this to you guys?" Atin slumped against the wall, all the available seating being taken up by the members of teams RWBY and JNPR.

"I didn't get to explain shit."

"Well no wonder they were freaking the fuck out! Why the hell did you not lead with the explanation Max?" Atin stared at Max, incredulous.

"Admittedly, that was an oversight on my part. I regret nothing, however. I think."

"Okay guys. Listen closely. Death is not a permanent issue for us. Explanation over, carry on kids." Atin braced himself for the inevitable barrage of questions.

Max stared at Atin, his expression deadpan. "You no longer get to complain about my lack of explanation."

"That explains nothing! What kind of explanation is that?" Weiss appeared furious, screaming at the two teaching assistants.

"Okay, look, I understand that explains nothing. However, you're just gonna have to deal with it. It's all I can tell you. The rest is classified. The only reason I can even tell you this much is because of what happened." Atin adopted a serious look, hoping they would stop asking questions.

Max looked at Atin in consternation this time. "Really? You can't just admit we actually don't know why we come back after we die?" Turning his attention to the students, Max said, "The only actual classified thing here is that we don't actually want anyone knowing about that little condition of ours."

"Yeah, do us a favor and don't tell people about this. We want to try and keep it quiet. Up 'til now, we were largely successful at that. Currently only you guys, Ozpin, and Goodwitch know. We want to keep it that way. Also, next time you think you're discussing a murder, maybe keep your voices down, lock your doors, etc. It's bad enough JNPR heard you guys. At least the transfer students haven't moved in yet." Atin shook his head at the situation.

The students looked at the teaching assistants, clearly not believing a word coming from their mouths. "We're expected to just accept this?" Blake asked, finally speaking for the first time since Max had come into the room.

"I could jump out the window to prove a point," Max replied, already stepping towards the currently closed window.

"Don't be stupid, Max, everyone on campus could see that. Yang, kill me. Just punch me, right in the face. I won't block it." Atin closed his eyes, visibly tensing up.

A few moments passed, everyone in the room silent, the students not believing what they were hearing.

"I'm still waiting, Yang. While death is not an issue for me, I would appreciate it if you would _hurry up and punch me._ Oh, and do try and mind the splash, keep it away from the windows. Don't worry about cleanup, it will go away when I come back." Yang hesitantly began to draw her arm back, unsure of if she should follow through.

"Yang, don't get pulled into their… their delusion! This is insane! You can't actually believe this?" Weiss was furious at the nonsense coming from the teaching assistants.

Max looked at the students, before realization finally hit his dulled common sense. "Atin...it occurs to me that our little ability may have dulled our common sense on these matters. Why don't we go see Ozpin with the students in tow?" Max suggested a rather obvious solution to the problem at hand.

"Fair enough. RIght, come on, let's go. Forward march, etc, etc." Atin flung the door open gesturing the crowd of confused students towards the hall.

Max stepped out of the room, saying over his shoulder, "Keep in mind, we can still give detention for insubordination, kiddos. Get moving."

* * *

The elevator to Ozpin's office opened a third time, depositing a still protesting Weiss, accompanied by Atin and Max.

"Ahhh, Mr. Winchester, Mr. Force. Now that you're here, would you mind explaining to me why you've brought not one, but two teams of very confused students to my office?" Ozpin remained calmly seated at his desk, sipping his coffee.

Max walked over to stand behind Team RWBY. "Well, sir, young Rose here," Max explained, his hand mussing Ruby's hair, "had a bit of a misfire in the firing range, involving Mr. Winchester. As such, the rather unique circumstances concerning the hell that is Atin and my own life have come to light. The students, of course, are having a hard time accepting it as truth."

"That's part of the reason we're here anyway. He left out the part where the geniuses were talking about my death _in their room with their door wide open_ which is why JNPR found out, and why he had to drag them along. Also, what's the punishment for killing a teacher? Cause I'm gonna be honest Ozpin, getting my head blown off sucked. A lot." Atin kept himself in front of the elevator, making it clear no one was going anywhere.

Ozpin digested the information before taking a sip from his mug. "As it so happens, Mr. Winchester, we do not have such a policy in place. It appears we have yet to need one, as well," Ozpin replied, calmly setting his mug back down on the desk.

"Then can we at least ban hair trigger modifications? That's the reason I died. It's super unsafe. Oh, and if you could convince them that we are not, in fact, insane, well that would be great, too. I don't feel like using the elevator again." Atin remained standing, doing his best to conceal his annoyance.

Ozpin appeared to consider this for a moment, then replied, with a nod, "We can certainly look into banning the _use_ of hair trigger modifications on school grounds, if nothing else."

"And the part about convincing the kids that we aren't insane? And impressing upon the need to keep this quiet?" Atin chimed in.

"Well, children, perhaps you could explain the issue here to me?" Ozpin asked, his attention on the students now.

"Besides the fact that Mr. Winchester is a crime against nature? Nothing really," Weiss spoke up first, her voice dripping sarcasm and venom in equal measures.

"Or how about the fact that Ruby is traumatized?" Yang was clearly furious, her eyes glowing dangerously red.

"Why did you hire teachers for a Hunter academy that don't have their aura unlocked?" Pyrrha asked.

"I assure you, Miss Schnee, Mr. Winchester is not a crime against nature. We can arrange for some counseling for Miss Rose, someone other than Mr. Force and Mr. Winchester if needed. Miss Nikos, we strive to ensure our faculty have their aura unlocked. Some have slipped through the cracks occasionally, but it's very rare and I can personally assure that this is not a case of such with Mr. Force and Mr. Winchester," Ozpin calmly replied, answering the questions without skipping a beat.

"They have their aura unlocked? But… Ember Celica... " Ruby trailed off, her face turning an alarming shade of green as she remembered what she had done.

"Yes, I've gotten the gist, Miss Rose. Now, you of course all know that aura does require some active mental gymnastics as you train with it. Unfortunately for our teaching assistants, their aura is...rather miniscule. Can't even stop a paper cut, unfortunately. There most certainly isn't enough to stop a bullet, so training it has apparently been a rather useless prospect for them. However, I believe that may simply be the tradeoff for their semblances."

"Honestly, I would much rather have an aura that's actually useful. Dying is… inconvenient. And dreadfully boring, for me at least. What about you Max?" Atin had taken up residence on his favorite patch of wall, one that was far away from the absurd amount clockwork Ozpin had in his office.

"God, yes, I'd rather have aura than this shitty ability," Max agreed, nodding. "Lost its shine after the first six or so deaths."

"So, Ozpin has confirmed that we are not, in fact crazy, making it up, or eldritch horrors. Now, while we could give you a demonstration, we aren't. For multiple reasons. Now, do you understand why you have to keep quiet about this?" Atin asked the assembled teams.

There was a moment of silence, before the teams slowly started raising their hands, their expressions clearly showing they had questions.

"Right, nothing else, good to know!" Max said, walking back over to the elevator, ignoring the students. "I have papers to help grade, so if you'll just excuse me."

"I have transcripts to write, papers to grade, moral foundations to erode, very busy. Toodles! Oh, parting bit of advice. Next time you commit manslaughter, try _not_ shouting about it with an open door while in the same general area of the crime scene." Atin joined Max on the elevator, leaving the students trapped in Ozpin's office until their trip down was finished.

As the elevator door closed, the students looked at Ozpin, who simply stared back. "Well, with term break coming up, that means term finals are as well. Do your best to study, children," Ozpin said, turning his attention to a stack of papers on his desk.


	13. Chapter 13

Max was sat, scratching out notes in a book once again. There was a knock on the partially closed sliding door that had finally been installed, Max replying with a "Come in" to whoever was there. He turned around slightly in his chair as the beads rustled, eyes widening slightly at seeing a young woman with dark green hair and blue eyes. "Can I help you with something?" he asked her.

"Oh, is Mr. Winchester not here?" she asked, her voice sounding familiar. "I had a question about some of the notes this week."

Max shook his head, racking his brain. He couldn't place her face or voice right now. "Atin's out at the moment. I could take a message if you'd like." He gestured at the notepad they now left on the countertop near the door, in case students needed to see them, but no one was there. He was wondering if this was a character he'd simply forgotten about and this would be a good way to get a name.

"Oh, alright then," she said, jotting down a quick note. "Well, see you in Mr. Port's class tomorrow, Mr. Max." The girl left, closing the door behind her.

"Alright, let's see who that was." Max stood up and walked over to the notepad, taking a look. The handwriting was immediately recognizable and the name signed at the bottom was a surprise. "Jade?" There was a moment of silence as Max processed this. "Wait, what?! Fuck, are we in season two now?!" Before he could continue this train of thought, he heard the heavy pounding of footsteps outside the door.

Atin slammed the door aside, grabbing the "Do not disturb sign" they had gotten, for the off chance they didn't want people just wandering in. "Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax! I see people! People that aren't plot relevant. Do you know what this means?"

"We're in season two and now have to deal with a lot more collateral than season one?"

"Well yes, but I meant that I have relearn who everyone is. Also, the student registry just got a lot more useful. Oh, and we have to get ready to actually try and stop bad things from happening now, which will be difficult, given that we are not, nor will we ever be able to actually fight them." Atin sat down the couch, staring up at the ceiling.

"Alright, points conceded. Maybe we can at least prevent the giant robot highway thing. I really don't wanna have to deal with the potential fallout from that." Max sat back down at the table, resting his head on a hand. "We can probably stop the CCT thing, at least. Gum up the works or something."

"Soooo…we are going to commit sabotage, in the hopes of preventing sabotage? I like it! How do we deal with the guards?" Atin grabbed the notepad, and began scribbling notes on it.

"We use our faculty IDs. I don't think they're going to stop us, Atin, we work for the school and at this point, I'm pretty sure Ozpin would vouch for us for damn near anything. Just, you know, don't mention that we plan to sabotage the CCT workings to stop a virus being planted."

"Okay, so we just walk past the guards, the boring way. More important question, how do we handle a pissed off Cinder? So far, burning to death is one of the things I haven't experienced, and boy would I like to keep it that way." Atin gazed at Max quizzically.

"Well, if we do it right, she wouldn't even know it was us. There's gotta be a period where the tower's empty, right? I think an hour or two would be more than long enough to get in and out before she or anyone else could actually catch us doing anything. The show made it seem like the only guards there were at the base. No one inside."

"Well except the poor bastards in the elevator. Also, how do we explain to the Winter Soldier why we sabotaged the CCT? And 'Trust us, we stopped something way worse' probably won't cut it."

Max looked at Atin, his voice turning deadly serious. "We tell him it was a stupid bet and lean on Ozpin to keep him off us."

"That is a terrible idea, however, I lack a better one. Also, how bad do we want to wreck the place? Cause if we just keep Cinder from doing it that night, what's gonna stop her from just going some other time? Like, sure it'll be harder, but I doubt that will stop her."

Max shrugged. "We can wing the Ironwood thing. But stopping her once at the CCT at least buys time. Push comes to shove, we can try the whole double agent thing, see how it works out for us."

"Okay. Do we even want to try and stop the breach from happening? I don't see how we could, without procuring an…alarming amount of explosives." Atin got up and began to pace.

"I don't know that we could stop it, but...maybe we could mitigate damage and whatnot. An impromptu trip into Vale with the teams that didn't leave campus might be something we could do. Have them closer to the action than they were in the show?"

"I mean, we can probably do that, but we are gonna have to really buddy up to them for that. Sadly, we can't just say 'Go here because we're your teachers.' Would have made this much simpler. Alas, I shall have to do one of the many things I despise. Be friendly and nice. Also, we should _probably_ lean on Ozpin to get us a weapon. I am not gonna try fistfighting a grimm." Atin's pace accelerated, as he got caught up in planning.

Max just pulled his scroll out, waving it a bit. "Not too late to get those unused lockers hooked up to your scroll."

"That is not a solution and you know it. What happens when we leave Beacon? You can't have intercontinental rocket lockers." Atin glared at Max.

"Is that a bet? Because I asked Ozpin about the range on these things."

"Max, even if they can do that, it would be literal minutes of travel time. SO unless you're about to reveal that you're a Newtype and can see the future, that still won't work." Atin continued glaring.

"Travel time is fairly short between here and the furthest edge of Vale. The two of us could make the calculations and estimations, easily, with the program on the scroll for it. Besides, we can have them stocked with weapons or supplies. Think of them more like support units than combat units. If _we_ actually have to fight, then everyone's probably fucked already."

"While I agree with you on the last point, it's not like we can't offer more direct support. For crying out loud, you're from the south. You have to know how to shoot. It's a jailable offense if you can't, right?" Atin went back to the couch, his excitement dulled.

"That is not true, but I do know how to shoot. It...might actually be a genetic thing. First time I went skeet shooting, took me one shot to adjust to how to actually hit targets."

"See? If nothing else, we Xcom it. Take enough low percent shots and eventually you'll kill them."

"Yes, of course, the good ol' spray and pray method. We'll need to ask for something that takes ammo boxes, then."

"I'm more than happy to ask Ozpin for the Remnant equivalent of an M60. Get some bipods, and we might actually be useful if we have prep time. And enemies that won't come looking for us." Atin jotted down a note on the pad. "Remind to burn this page later, don't want the students asking questions about 'break CCT', 'find explosives dealer' and 'get more dakka'. Even if they won't get the last one."

"Might as well burn the whole book. They might know the pencil trick."

"We don't have to burn the book, just like, 15 pages or so should be good. And even if they know the pencil trick, there is one thing they aren't prepared for. Reading my terrible handwriting, which is only made worse by me being a lefty." Atin ripped a series of pages of the book, tossing it at Max.

Max caught the book, staring at it for a moment. He then slowly looked back up at Atin. "Atin...we need to go stake out Tukson's shop. And push him into working at Beacon. We didn't do too good a job fucking the timeline for season one. Let's see how much we can do so for this season."

"Max… are you asking me to be as disruptive to the timeline as I possibly can?" Atin stared at Max, suddenly very serious.

"Moreso than we have so far. I mean, at best, we got Jaune a headstart on being useful. That's really about all we've done. The team RWBY thing was fixed in about the same amount of time, so all we really did was change how it happened. Not when or where. I wanna see how much we can change before this becomes a roller coaster we won't be allowed off of. Like keeping Tukson alive. Or slowing down the computer virus thing. Or...I dunno, trying to talk Roman into swapping sides. Or at least keeping him off the damn airship."

"Max. You didn't answer my question. Do you want me to be as disruptive as I possibly can, yes or no?" Atin leaned forward in his seat, still staring.

"I...am now scared to answer…"

"It's a simple question Max. Yes or No?"

"Um...yes?"

"Yipppppee!" Atin jumped off the couch, before running into his room, grabbing the notepad on the way, slamming his door shut. A distinct "click" of lock being turned could be heard in the silence.

"Wonder how many times he'll die before coming off this high?"


	14. Chapter 14

"Ugh... this place is so dull." Mercury lamented as he walked the mostly quiet streets of Vale.

"Eh, I kinda like it. Tall buildings, diverse culture…" said Emerald as she ambled alongside her partner-in-crime.

"And nice dopey people who are easy to pickpocket." Mercury grinned.

Emerald came to a stop and grinned "That's every city."

"Ooh, Emerald! Master thief! Please don't take my money! I barely have enough to get by!"

Emerald just glared at Mercury.

"Ugh... you're no fun today." Mercury slumped his shoulders in defeat before resuming his casual pace through the city.

After a few more minutes of walking, they made their way into a bookstore, looking around at the shelves. Behind the counter was a somewhat chubby man, resting his chin on his hand as he leaned against the counter. He raised an eyebrow at Emerald and Mercury. "You miss the 'Out for Lunch' sign hanging in the door?" he asked them, clearly annoyed at the two.

Looking back at the door, Mercury shrugged, walking over to one of the floor shelves and began looking at the books. "Guess we did. We're just such avid book lovers, it's easy to miss something like that," he replied, flicking through the pages of whatever book was currently in his hands.

"Uh-huh. Anything in particular you're looking for?" Max asked, standing up and stretching his back a bit.

"Well, would there happen to be any copies of 'The Thief and The Butcher'?" Emerald asked, slowly walking up to the counter, Max noting that she appeared a bit annoyed herself at Tukson not being here alone.

Max scratched his head, before pointing at a shelf near the counter. "Two copies, hardback, on that shelf there. There's a handful of paperback, too, somewhere over by your friend there."

"That's fantastic," Emerald gushed with a nod, Max cringing internally at the acting.

"Mmm. Any other titles?" From behind him, Max heard something drop behind the door. "You okay back there?" he called, checking on Tukson, who was currently doing a final inventory on his stock.

"Everything's fine," came back Tukson's voice.

Another look between Mercury and Emerald, Max noted, quite certain the two were figuring out if that was their target in the back or not and the intricacies of silencing two people rather than one now. "So, anyways, any other titles you might be looking for?"

"How about some comics?" Mercury asked, putting down what was his third book that he pretended to look through.

"Look to your right, you're standing by the holders."

"So I am." Mercury took a look at the rotating stand, while Emerald seemed to be thinking about another title.

"How about…'Third Crusade'?" Emerald asked, fishing for a reaction now.

A loud voice called from the shelves on the opposite side of the store "DEUS VULT".

"Wha? Atin? What the fuck, we sent you to pick up lunch an hour ago, have you just been hiding in the sci-fi section this entire time?!" Max shouted, looking for the nearest object to throw at his friend.

"Well no. I was waiting in the back for Tukson's order, but he never gave it to me, so I got bored and wanted to see if I could anything worth reading. So I haven't been hiding over here the entire time."

"And you didn't go ask him because…?"

"Well A. I did, but he was busy, and B. I haven't read a good book in a while. So sue me."

Max sighed, banging his head on the counter. After a moment of contemplation, he stood back up to address Emerald's question. For Mercury and Emerald's part, they didn't pay the exchange much attention, apparently now working on the most effective way to handle three murders. "Anyways, no, none of that in stock. And _don't_ start on the store slogan, I didn't pick it and it's closing today, anyways."

Atin yelled into the back, "Hurry up back there, I gotta get back to the school, I got class in like, an hour!"

"Hold your horses, I'm hurrying best I can!" Tukson yelled back.

Meanwhile, Max had pulled out his scroll, typing something out. "Aaaand, there, two more students checked in. Thought you two looked familiar," he said, sending a quick message off to Ozpin to let him know he and Atin would be back at Beacon before the end of the day with the new school librarian in tow.

"Do you kids not realize that your schools did in fact pay to get you here? You didn't have to stow away on a Cargo ship. Or a fishing boat. Or a cargo bullhead. Or anything else."

This got a double take from the assassin and thief. "Come again?" Mercury blurted out, dropping the book in his hand.

"What, you think that you're the only group that did this? You have no idea how many complaints we've gotten from the port authorities. Or the TSA, the dockworkers union, and several assorted cargo pilots. You are far from the first group to show up early. In fact… you two are the… twenty-third group to arrive early and unannounced." Atin continued flipping through his scroll.

"Twenty-fourth, got another kid at, like, two this morning, remember? Tried to sneak up the cliffs in the forest. Good thing Port was on patrol," Max corrected, poking buttons on the register.

"Oh yeaaaah. Good kid, terrible use of pitons. If you're gonna climb a cliff, double check that you have enough rope. Also, make sure the local nevermores aren't awake. Write that down you two." Atin glanced at the bewildered pair.

"And since you're here anyway, I don't suppose we could talk you two into helping us packmule some objects of interest for Beacon's new librarian? Ozpin managed to find a moving company that got, er, _some_ , and I use that term loosely, of the items out of this store and up to Beacon."

"In fact, you don't have a choice. In order to compensate your school for wasted funds, you work for us now. Get moving. Chop-Chop, I don't have all day, and neither does Max." Atin tossed a folded up cardboard box at Mercury's face. Mercury caught it easily enough, though the two would-be murderers now seemed more confused than anything else, perhaps a bit frustrated that they had been easily identified and checked into a system they hadn't even been aware of.

"The moving van gets here in about twenty, so just grab whatever books you think might grab interest at Beacon, maybe snag a few for your personal collections. Bit of compensation for Atin's immediate conscription of your time." Max, meanwhile, walked into the backroom to make sure Tukson hadn't decided to suddenly run out on the two TAs.

Atins scroll began vibrating in his hands "Hurry up you two, I have to take this outside." The door to the bookshop swung closed with a cheerful tinkle. Despite that, both Emerald and Mercury could still hear the outraged voice quite clearly. "They did what? How? In 5 minutes? How is that possible? And why were they armed? What the hell do you mean they did it with food? It is physically impossible to destroy a concrete beam with a goddamn watermelon Glynda!" Atin stuck his head back inside the door "MAX. GET OUT HERE. WE HAVE TO LEAVE. NOW. THOSE IDIOTS BROKE THE SCHOOL. AGAIN."

Max came out of the backroom. "What? We can't leave, we've still gotta help Tukson and make sure these two actually show up at the school to help as well. What happened?"

"Oh yes we do. They broke the lunchroom. With a literal foodfight. They somehow managed to use watermelons, loaves of bread, and my personal favorite, exploding soda cans. So we need to go convince Glynda that they A. need like, a months worth of detention and that B. she should make them clean it all up. Now let's go. These two troublemakers can finish helping Tukson."

"Let me see the scroll?" Max asked, holding out his hand.

"Sure, go nuts." Atin underhanded the scroll at his friend.

With an almost impressive catch, Max put the scroll to his ear. "Hey, Glynda, this is Max. Yes. Yeah, I got the gist of it. Yes, yes, I'll talk to Atin about yelling into the scroll like that. Look, don't do anything, have them clean it up. They need to learn actions have consequences and this is a damn sight better than last month when we had the police involved. No, I don't care what Ozpin is saying. Glynda. Glynda. Glynda! Atin and I made a fucking presentation on this, don't make us come back to the school to show it to you and Ozpin. Glynda!" He looked at the scroll. "She hung up. Guess who's getting a presentation, Atin?"

"Wait, do you want the quick one, or the one that looks like it was done by a spastic ten year old that just discovered MS powerpoint effects? 'Cause I have both." Atin motioned for the scroll back, Max tossing it back.

"Oh, they get a double feature. Emerald and Mercury, right?" Max now turned his attention to the criminal youth. They looked at him, apparently accepting at this point that there would be no murder this day. "Atin and I have to head back a bit earlier than expected. Do be dears and help Tukson finish up? I think the moving van might be here early, actually."

"By the way you two, I will be asking Tukson if you actually helped him later. And for your sake, you better hope he gives a _glowing_ report, because boy oh boy I am itching for some more idiots to put in line. Now, we're gonna get going. Try to not cause any property damage, murders, or general criminal activity for like, five minutes, okay?"

And with that, the two TAs walked out the front door, passing the movers on their own way in, who immediately moved into the backroom as Tukson came out. "Where'd Max and Atin go?" he asked, noting Emerald and Mercury, both now holding full boxes.

"Some kind of cleanup at Beacon," Emerald sighed, unbelieving that she and Mercury had gone from tracking down a rat to helping said rat move to one of the most secure locations in Vale.


	15. Chapter 15

"And that concludes our feature presentation 'Keeping those little shits with superpowers in line,' are there any questions?" Atin put the clicker down, and looked at his captive audience.

Max ran his hand through his hair, sighing in disappointment. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea he'd prepared a third presentation to go with the first two," he said to Ozpin and Glynda, who looked bemused and exasperated, respectively.

"Honestly, I just did that to torture you Max, but I thought it might be a little helpful." Atin took his scroll off Ozpin's desk.

Max looked at his own scroll, contemplating the odds of hitting Atin with it from halfway across Ozpin's office. Before he could actually perform the windup, Glynda looked out the window, groaning in exasperation. "Ironwood is here. Your presentations took up literally all night," she said, getting up and stretching. "And he has apparently decided to bring his work with him once again."

"It's not my fault you guys have no idea how the use the iron fist of discipline and I'm sorry did you just say that Ironwood is here? Shit Max, we need to go. Now." Atin began heading towards the elevator bank, only for it to give a cheerful _ding._

"Too late," Ozpin said, the elevator door opening to reveal James Ironwood and, to the surprise of Max and Atin, Winter Schnee.

"Fuccck. I am not in the mood to deal with the Winter Soldier or try to explain what's going on. Quickly Max, we must take the express elevator!" Atin began straining at the elevator doors, only to find them stubbornly shut. He moved to the next one, finding it similarly closed. "Ozpin, why did you get rid of our emergency escape?"

"And why would you need an emergency escape?" Ironwood asked, walking over to stand before Max and Atin.

"Because you and your femme fatale over there will not believe anything I say without a demonstration, and that means it will take at least an hour. Also, you annoy me greatly, but that's really secondary. Well Ozpin, since you have made an expedient demonstration difficult, hurry up and splatter me." Atin gestured at the Headmaster's cane, and seemed to brace himself.

Ironwood raised an eyebrow, deciding it would be more fruitful to talk to Max at this point. "Please tell me that at least one of you is one of the 'oracles' Ozpin mentioned recently," he said.

"Oh, we both are, you'll just have to excuse Atin. He likes to exaggerate occasionally," Max replied, offering his hand. "Name's Max Force."

Ironwood shook the proffered hand, saying in amusement, "I see Ozpin wasn't kidding about the comedy dynamic of you two."

"Wait, you're telling me believes it? The whole story? Even the pseudo immortality bit? I mean, I guess it isn't that unbelievable coming from the demi-lich of Vale." Atin headed towards the wall, which had begun to develop an outline from his frequent leans.

"The pseudo what now?" Winter asked, speaking up for the first time.

Ozpin gave a cough, bringing attention back onto himself. "Their semblance, Specialist Schnee. They cannot, for all intents and purposes, die. After an hour's time, no more, no less, they return to life, fully intact and healed, with all their memories intact, including that of the death itself. They have very little aura, however, so we believe this to be a tradeoff of sorts. And there appears to be something of a secondary ability in their semblance. The part concerning the title of 'Oracle' that Glynda and myself have seen fit to refer to them as in our communications," he said, taking a moment to sip from his mug.

"Yes, I was curious about the 'Oracle' bit. How trustworthy has their intel been? And how much of it has been actionable? I noticed the report failed to mention that." Winter gazed at the "Oracles", clearly judging them.

Ozpin and Glynda shared a glance at this point, Ozpin coughing awkwardly. "Yes, well...concerning the, er, 'Oracle' bit, as you put it, they are...they are in possession of potentially useful information and have demonstrated that they are in possession of knowledge that they should not have. Knowledge that may not be shared by all gathered here." Ozpin glanced to Winter, before turning his gaze on Ironwood.

Ironwood nodded at the message. "Specialist Schnee, if you would," he said, gesturing to one of the elevator doors.

"Actually, hold on. I think she should stay. After all Ozpin has his minion in on this. And if something terrible were to happen to General Ironwood, it would be useful to have someone else in the Atlas military up to speed. In addition, in the event of a crisis situation, having a trained specialist on hand with knowledge of what actually needs to be kept safe seems like a good idea to me. But hey, what do I, the mystical Oracle know? You probably shouldn't listen to me." Atin began idly flipping though his scroll, feigning disinterest, poorly.

"To be fair, as mystical Oracles, not being able to actually tell them shit ahead of time makes us pretty shit at our job," Max pointed out.

"Hey, it's a better schtick than the Oracle of Delphi got. At least they _believe_ us. As opposed to calling us liars and throwing us in a dungeon. But anyway, having seen the Specialists record, I find no reason not to trust her, or her judgement."

A glance between Ozpin and Ironwood was apparently enough for them to agree. With a quick rundown from Ozpin, Winter was quickly brought up to speed on the Four Maidens and the vault under the school.

"Well, that's...a lot to take in and process, I'll admit," Winter said once all was said and done. "However, if these two are truly useless as future seers, why are they being kept in the loop?"

"Because even having someone around with some kind of motivation to interfere in events is better than not having them around or under the thumb of someone actually dangerous. Imagine what we could do if we simply set our sights on committing terrorism, Specialist Schnee," Max said, remembering an old point Atin made a couple months back.

"And while we can't tell you things ahead of time, we can tell you _exactly_ what happened afterwards, and what they were after, in addition to us causing them whatever… complications we can. I can truthfully tell you that we have already stopped one murder, and that you might want to ask some very pointed questions to Beacon's new librarian. Just a thought." Atin glanced around, then shared a pointed look with Max, seemingly trying to get a point across without words.

"Atin, we're not Ozpin and Ironwood, I can't read your fucking mind from a weird look of constipation," Max deadpanned.

"You know, you make it really hard to sell this whole 'We are clearly very wise and you should listen to us' thing. Making the job a lot harder than it needs to be my dude." His head dropped down to meet his hand as Atin gave a massive sigh.

"Regardless, gentlemen, I must agree with Specialist Schnee here. I'm afraid I don't see much point in having you kept in the loop, even with the idea of you attempting to commit terrorism by grossly abusing your immortality," Ironwood interrupted the two.

"Well see funny thing about knowing all the important stuff, Ironwood. You can't actually keep us _out_ of the loop. At all. This just makes it easier for everyone involved. It also lets you guys have some input on what we do. Or would you rather we just try and solve this problem by ourselves. Two civilians with a grossly abusable power and access to things that go boom?" Atin glared at Ironwood.

"And you would get access to 'things that go boom', how, exactly?"

"Well, we could always go work for Torchwick, maybe take a part time job at a dust shop and slowly funnel bits of inventory to our own personal use, maybe have a talk with a certain bar owner in downtown Vale about appropriating something with a bit of kick to it," Max suggested. "There are any number of ways, really, but it mostly comes down to a question of effort versus payoff in the end. And with two people who have nothing but time on their hands and no real threat to their lives, we can get very creative when we're motivated."

"Oh and given that we actually know what's gonna happen? Consider us verrrrry motivated, Robo-Cop. I would like to point out that it isn't like we're keeping secrets for fun here. We can. It hurts quite a bit more than you think. Peter Pan was a lying dick. It would be much simpler for us to tell Ozpin, and by extension, you everything that's gonna happen so you can grab them all in a nice little coup and leave you-know-who reeling. But we can't. I can't even say her _name_ because Schnee over there doesn't know it. So do try and remember that we aren't trying to be difficult here." Atin had walked over to Ironwood during his rant, his face inches from the unflustered general poking the general in the chest, annoyed by their rather significant height difference. Max snorted from his position, any intimidation Atin might have been going for completely ruined by the imagery in front of him.

"Back on topic, sirs," Ozpin said. "As Atin said, it isn't so much that they won't tell us, as they can't. Their bodies react...unfavorably to any attempts at 'spoiling the plot.' I believe that's something like what Max said."

Ironwood looked at Max, swatting at Atin's still poking hand. "He's right, unfortunately," Max nodded. "Horrible, uncontrolled vomiting. And it's far more strict than I like."

"Oh?" Winter asked.

"Yeah. We can't even give basic yes or no answers, can't write things down, so on and so forth."

"Can't write things down? I could understand the vocal answering, but you can't even make notes for us to see?" Ironwood asked, understably sounding off put and disbelieving.

"Ozpin, got some paper? I don't want to ruin a scroll. Again." Atin didn't wait for Ozpin to answer, instead rummaging through the desk drawers until he found a paper and pencil. He quickly wrote the name SALEM in all caps, tore the sheet off the page, and handed it to Ironwood.

"Alright, do me a favor, read what this says to yourself. Go ahead and take the page, flip it around, observe to your satisfaction that is an ordinary sheet of paper." Having said this, he handed the sheet to Ironwood and stepped away.

Ironwood examined the page for a few moments, flipping the page around, before handing it back to Atin. "It certainly seems to be an ordinary piece of paper with a name written on it."

"Now was I correct in my earlier statement that Specialist Schnee is unaware of that name? Don't bother answering, I know I am. Now watch this." Atin folded the sheet over itself so the name couldn't be seen, and moved towards Winter. "Specialist Schnee, in a moment I want you try and read the name from this page. I suggest you watch your fingers. I would also highly suggest turning your Aura on. " Atin handed the still folded note to Winter and quickly stepped away.

"General, this is ridiculous, it's a piece of paper. Must we continue humoring these… civilians?"

She held the note in her hand, still folded over itself.

"Let's humor them just a little longer, and then we can throw them out, and hear no more of this nonsense. Is that fair Ozpin?" Ironwood had a bemused smirk on his face as he looked over at Ozpin.

"That certainly seems fair to me, James." Ozpin casually sipped from his ever present mug to hide his smirk.

"Alright Specialist, go ahead and read that piece of paper." Atin gestured at the folded sheet of paper expectantly.

"Oh this is absurd. It's a sheet of paper. What's going to happen when I- oh my." The sheet of paper in her hand caught flame violently, a sudden flash of light was all that heralded the brief flame. All that remained of the note was a swiftly crumbling collection of ash.

Max sighed, this whole song and dance was still annoying. "Okay, how about some icing on the cake, then? Let's get a bit more into the things that can be talked about under the assumption that you and your right hand woman there know about. And let's be honest, I'm willing to put money down that you've told Ozpin and Glynda about one of the reasons for your visit. You plan to unveil the Atlesian Knight 200 series, a sleeker, more user friendly designed robotic soldier in the fight against Grimm." This got a scoff from Winter, while Ironwood simply nodded at him to continue. "Ozpin, Glynda, would you mind plugging your ears for just a moment?" His two employers complying, Max crossed his arms. "There's also the matter of a missing shipment of these knights and a handful of Atlesian Paladin-290s, yeah? Something you obviously wouldn't want the public or, presumably, Ozpin knowing about at this point in time."

Ironwood rubbed his chin. "I'm fairly certain anyone with access to Ozpin's network could figure as much out themselves," he noted.

"Fair enough, but would that network also be able to find information on Penny Polendina?" This got a wide eyed reaction from both Winter and Ironwood. "Or about what she really is? Because I'm pretty sure anyone that could have gotten that info would have been long dead by this point. And seeing as I can't be permanently killed, well. Not much happening, going that route." He waved his hand at Ozpin and Glynda, who unplugged their ears at this point.

"Well, James? Any further concerns about the validity of their claims?" Ozpin asked.

"Actually, not done just yet." Atin grabbed the sheet of paper and pencil, and handed them to Ironwood. "Go ahead and write out that name, give the sheet to Schnee, and observe it bursting into flames please, just so there isn't a question about this."

"I don't think that will be necessary. I see you two were not exergating about your inability to share the information you have. I will admit this is very… odd." Ironwood had lost his smirk, and it was replaced with a look of deep thought. "And you've tried everything to share this information? Even down to nodding or shaking your head? Hypnotism? Everything feasible and infeasible?"

"Nodding my head earned me a trip to the chiropractor," Max admitted. "Immediate inflamed disk near the neck. Atin was the one who volunteered for hypnotism, so ask him about that."

"I began to recite a list of ingredients for my family's special dip. Which sadly, no chip on Remnant is strong enough for. You remember right Max? The one I told you that only Frito scoops is strong enough for? That one."

Ironwood shook his head, visibly frustrated at this new turn of events. "Then I shall rephrase an earlier sentiment. What use are you to us in this state?" he asked.

"Okay Ironwood. Let me reframe this for you. You have two highly motivated operatives that literally cannot die, have invaluable intel, and absolutely no past tying them to you, and have for the past six months had theirs asses personally handed to by Ozpin's pet Qrow. How's that work for you?" Atin had sat on the floor, having grown tired of trying to crane his neck up to Ironwood.

"We'll do our best to stop bad shit, but we don't know all of the bad shit, just things that were deigned to be shown to us," Max added in. "We don't even really need help from you, aside from some sidearms or something for personal defense, but mostly we don't need help because we don't have a way of outright asking for it. But hey, it could be worse. We could have decided to bet on the other side."

"Actually, you could help us. We need something more…flashy. Something with nice stopping power, but still man portable. We have feeling we'll need it. Also, maybe an emergency flare if you can spare one? Being able to call the thunder would be handy. Certainly would make us more useful than 'accidentally' being in the right place at the right time with a group of students."

Ironwood rubbed the bridge of his nose. "We'll see. For now, though, I did come here on slightly different business with Ozpin, so if you'd be so kind?" He looked pointedly at Max and Atin.

"Yeah, sure, go for it," Max shrugged, moving to the elevator with Atin.


	16. Chapter 16

A loud thump echoed down the hall, disturbing Atin and his friend, a good book. "Max, they broke something again, go see what it was!" He remained on the couch, confident the more personable individual could handle the situation better.

Max's bedroom door slammed open, the TA unusually irritated. Poking his head through the bead curtains, he shouted, "It's past eleven at night and I haven't had a training-free Saturday in months, what the hell are you brats doing out here?! I just got comfortable and sleeping!"

"Yikes, now you kids have done it. You've poked the sleeping bear. So what did you break now, and who's fault is it? Yang, be honest, it was you, wasn't it?" Atin slipped past Max into the hallway. "Oh wait, none of you are Yang. Force of habit. But Emerald, Mercury, Cinder, what are you three doing here?"

Meanwhile, Max had just finished checking Cinder into the exchange list. "I know for a fact we showed Emerald and Mercury where the exchange student dorms are at. And you, Miss Fall, forgot to notify a member of staff that you had arrived," Max groused. "Ruby, no running in the halls and no more loud sounds. I'm short on sleep this week."

"Also reminder that Taco day is in… six hours. Feel free to show up. Also, make sure the other exchange kids know for me would you? Max, you still doing the cookie thing?" Atin turned to his surly friend.

"Long as no one wakes me up before eight, sure, why not?" Max stomped back to his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind him.

"Wooow, I haven't actually seen him mad in a while. I'm impressed guys. I have to really work at it to make him mad. Great job. Now get back to your rooms before he comes back out here." Atin made a shooing gesture with his hands.

"Apologies, sir," Cinder said, while Emerald helped Ruby up off the floor. "We didn't mean to cause a disturbance. I was just so insistent that my teammates show me around the school before we retired to our own room."

"Oh nooo, we made him mad! Mr. Winchester what can I do to make sure I still get cookies tomorrow? I mean, let him know we're sorry." Ruby shot a worried look at Atin.

"Offhand? Don't wake him up again, but uhhhh, I got no idea. Really can't help you much here kid." Atin shrugged and started heading back to his room.

"Wait a minute, don't you live with the guy? And you have no idea how to make it up to him?" Mercury had a puzzled look on his face.

"Oh no, I know what to do. It's just that none of the stuff you can do is here. Anything that would cheer him up is back home. Both of us are long way from home after all. Doesn't even show up on the map." Atin left the hunters in training in the hallway, heading to his own room. Looking over his shoulder, he made a parting comment, "See if you can find a really complex model kit, that might help."

* * *

"Look Ozpin, all I'm asking is what we are gonna do about the fact that there is a media circus going on because four of our students and two exchange students were fighting Roman fucking Torchwick, who was piloting a stolen Atlas doombot, on the highway! The school hasn't issued any kind of press release, which I could understand if we were handling this 'In house' so to speak, but you haven't done anything to them! Last time I saw them they were all super excited 'cause they got to be the big damn heroes!" Atin stood in front of Ozpin's desk instead of leaning casually on the wall.

"It's only been a couple hours since the incident, Atin," Ozpin calmly replied, meeting Atin's eyes easily. "It's also past midnight. We can handle discipline later in the morning, after Glynda and myself have had some time to figure out an approach to this problem."

"Okay, so we leave discipline for when coffee isn't the only thing keeping most of us awake, fine. But we gotta spin this to press, and quick. I mean, look at this!" Atin pulled his scroll out and turned on the news.

"We are still live at the scene on the I-23 overpass, just one of the many stretches of highway damaged by the infamous Roman Torchwick on his rampage in a prototype weapon. The paramedics are working around the clock, and we still do not have confirmation on the number of injured persons, but it has climbed to above thirty, of which seventeen are in critical condition currently. We have confirmed the rampage began in the industrial district when students of Beacon Academy attempted to apprehend him. Where and how Torchwick got his on hands on this prototype is still unclear. Back to you-" Atin put the scroll back in his pocket.

"That, with tiny variations, is on every news channel right now. They know they came from here, and people are already starting to ask questions like 'what were students doing in the industrial district?' 'Did headmaster Ozpin order this?' And they aren't gonna stop. We have to say something. Back me up here Glynda, we can't just hope this goes away on it's own." Atin looked beseechingly to Glynda for support.

Glynda looked up from her own screen she'd been typing on. "I'm working on a statement, but right now, we have the small saving grace of this occurring in the middle of the night. That gives us just a bit of time, in regards to public relation," she said. "The rest of this morning will certainly be a busy one."

"Alright, what's our spin here? And I suppose, more importantly, how can I help?" Atin began pacing back and forth in front of the desk, eager to do something.

"There will be no 'spin' as you put it. We will simply tell people what happened when we have that information." Ozpin calmy sipped his coffee, having remained unperturbed throughout the evening.

"What do you mean, there isn't going to be a spin? The wizard of Beacon, who everyone in this room knows is in fact, head of a secret cabal guiding the fight against evil, isn't going to spin this? Did you guys never get Machiavelli here? Hell I wouldn't be surprised if it at some point _you_ were this world's Machiavelli. You can't just tell people that you were unaware that four of the first year students were hunting a renowned criminal in their off-hours. Most of them won't believe you, and the ones that do will just assume massive incompetence!" A look of shock was plastered on Atin's face.

"Sadly, there is only so much that we can do. Part of the issue is that we're still waiting on word from James, as part of this incident involves stolen Atlas equipment that was never publicized. As frustrating as this is, we will be handling this as a 'play by ear' scenario. We still have some hours yet, but we don't have all the facts lined up at this point in time." Ozpin leaned back in his chair, squeezing the bridge of his nose. "More than likely, we will be doing a joint statement with Atlas, but until then, panicking, pacing, and ranting will only get us so far. If there is any help to be had, it would be in figuring out the best way to discipline the students for this incredibly reckless behavior."

"I think Max already has that handled. Honestly, half the reason I came up here was because he was cursing up a storm. It was spooky. As for the joint statement, that will help, but we need to have a chat with the good general about full disclosure in the future." Atin cracked his knuckles before remembering that he could not in fact, threaten a foreign general and accomplished Huntsman.

* * *

Max looked at the door to the classroom. It had been an okay week up until last night's robot fiasco, something that he was pretty sure was about to get a statement over the next hour. That situation was always something that had bothered him in the show. The lack of consequences, nothing actually showing any kind of aftermath. Things just moved forward. He, sadly, now knew that there was an aftermath. He opened the door and walked in, the members of RWBY, as well as Sun and Neptune, turning their attention to him. He closed the door, then moved to stand behind the table set up at the front. "So," he started, setting a heavy bag down on the table with a dull _thud_. "Anyone have a guess as to why you were called into this classroom at nine in the morning?"

"Uhhh… What's in the bag there, Max?" Yang looked uneasily at the square duffel bag, which appeared to be full almost to bursting.

"That wasn't an answer, Miss Xiao-Long."

"The bag is full of cookies because you wanted to congratulate us for stopping a dangerous criminal and saving the city. Right?" Ruby asked hesitantly, Max's brusque manner making her, along with the other five uneasy.

"No. Anyone else?" Max looked around, his index finger slowly tapping the table he stood behind. "Very well, then. Last night, Atin and myself were woken up by a call from Headmaster Ozpin, at roughly eleven-thirty or thereabouts. He informed us that six of our students, two of which are exchange students, had apparently been in a chase and subsequent fight with a missing Atlas combat mech. Atin then pulled up a news stream and...well. News was made last night. A statement will be made to the public in the next hour or two. In the meantime, however, I want to know what exactly went through the heads of you kids at the time. What your thoughts at the time were."

"We _thought_ that we were stopping a dangerous criminal who was working with the White Fang to rob literally every Dust shop Vale, that's what we thought we were doing. _Sir_." Blake gave Max an icy glare, clearly upset.

Max leveled his stare at Blake now. "Okay. Mind walking me through the logic of this plan? The little details, maybe?" Max was doing a decent job keeping his voice level throughout all of this, but his tone was kept low.

"It's not like we planned to fight Roman! We were just sneaking into a White Fang rally to get information! Then Torchwick spotted us, hopped in the giant robot and started trying to crush us! And we stopped him from destroying the city!" Sun shouted at Max.

"Oh? And how, pray tell, did you come into the information about this rally? When were your plans made? How thorough were you in making them?" No one spoke for a moment, but when it looked like Weiss or perhaps Neptune was about to open their mouth, Max slammed a fist on the table. He took a breath before unfurling his hand. "The answer, I'm sure, is a contact Blake still had in the White Fang. Your plans were made on the spot. And you spent minimal effort in crafting them. Now, why didn't anyone bring this kind of information to the attention of a professional? Huntsman, Huntress, police officers, anything like that?" Another moment of silence. "Nothing at all? Miss Schnee, have you any inkling to why this information wasn't made known to those better suited for such things?"

"Well, sir," Weiss began strong, but she wasn't able to say anything past that. Several times, she opened her mouth, but just as quickly closed it.

"As I thought. So, tell me, between the high of winning and the thrill of being 'big damn heroes,' have you put thought into everything that happened last night?" By this point, the gathered students had decided remaining silent for now was their best bet. "So. Anyone recognize the name 'Ciane Vera?' Anyone at all?" Yet another moment of silence. "I want an answer. Do any of you recognize that name?"

Ruby hesitantly spoke up. "N-no, sir. Should we?" she asked, her voice quiet.

Max finally unzipped the square duffel, pulling out a folder. "Nineteen years old, grew up in Vale, right here in this city. A young lady with a dream of becoming a pianist. Was damn good at it. Arms, from her fingertips up to her elbows, are now mangled, crushed under a car. She'll live, but the doctors aren't looking optimistic about anything resembling even twenty percent of her abilities. Family doesn't have the income needed for prosthetics, either, if they wanted to go the route of amputate and replace." He set it down on the table, then pulled out another one. "Desiree Fleur, age twenty-two. Was well on her way to becoming a neuro-surgeon. Was in the same car as Ciane, in fact. Her entire right arm has to be amputated, her left hand might have a chance of recovery." Another folder set down, another one pulled out. "Jim Mello. Forty-six years of age. Was on his way to night classes after finishing work at his office. Whiplash. Slammed into the barriers on the side after slipping on a freak patch of ice that appeared out of nowhere." Weiss paled at this, her hand covering her mouth. Another folder down, another folder out. "Bron Slate. Age thirty-two. Was on the way to a graduation party for his nephew. Died after his car was thrown over the barriers by the hijacked combat mech." Setting this one down, Max stopped pulling folders out. He looked at each student in turn.

"We… we didn't know. But none of it's our fault! We weren't the ones smashing up the highway with a giant robot! We didn't throw that car over the side! That was all Roman, and we had to stop him before he hurt more people!" Ruby protested loudly.

"Six, actually. At least six confirmed, before I decided that going through twenty-two or so folders was enough of a statement. Six people injured as a direct result of the actions of some of Beacon's students, and I didn't finish going through every folder. I just mentioned the car that slipped on ice. Reports of a motorcycle driver recklessly speeding down the highway, spooking other drivers into the barrier. A girl with black hair and a Faunus with blonde hair and monkey tail jumping vehicle to vehicle and spooking those drivers into other drivers. Most of the major injuries may be an indirect result of your sheer stupidity last night, but right now, Ruby Rose is the only person who wasn't reported on that highway and didn't have a chance to add to the casualty count with her own hands." Max dug around the square duffel, bringing out a red folder. "This folder is a list of damages. Do you kids realize that in your fight, you busted two load bearing structures that were right beside each other? It's a miracle the highway didn't collapse at that spot. And that's not including the houses and businesses that Roman was essentially led through before he ended up on the highway. I'm still waiting for those numbers." Max gestured at the square duffel on the table. "This here, kids, is every single fuck up that happened last night, the important ones, compressed down into an easy to read format, with pictures and numbers to accompany them. _This_ is the result of your 'thought,' Miss Belladonna, of stopping a dangerous criminal. A dangerous criminal that wouldn't have needed to be stopped if you kids had anything even remotely resembling a good plan." Max stared at the students, who were all in varying degrees of shame and silence.

Blake slammed her hands down, yelling, "Then what were we supposed to do?!" She glared at Max, her face no longer showing shame, but instead anger. "No one else was doing anything to try and stop him! How long has it been since he started robbing every dust shop in the city? Almost a year now? The police have supposedly been looking everywhere, but we found him in just weeks! I didn't see anyone else doing anything, who understood the threat he posed, so I did what a Huntress is supposed to when people are in danger. I _acted._ It turns out it's a good thing we did, too. What would have happened if Roman had been able to unleash that robot when he was ready to? No one else was doing anything."

Max took a breath, shaking his head. "Tell me, Miss Belladonna, are you aware of how much influence Headmaster Ozpin actually has in the Kingdom of Vale? Did you stop to consider how much quicker investigations into Roman Torchwick and the White Fang could have gone if you'd given them this kind of information?" Max crossed his arms, looking Blake in the eyes and holding the stare. "And it's well known, surely, that Headmaster Ozpin and General Ironwood are fast friends. I can only being to imagine what General Ironwood could have done with that information."

"It wasn't as if we went in there planning to fight him! We were just there to gather information, we got spotted, and then he attacked us with a giant robot! We didn't want any of this to happen! Why can't you understand that!" Yang was standing by her partner now, both literally and metaphorically.

"No, I understand that you didn't want any of last night to happen. I understand that you might have believed you were doing the right thing. I even understand how frustrated you are with me, right now, standing here and asking the same question over and over. But I want you, yourselves, to understand the reasons behind your own actions. And the lack thereof." Max now started leaning back against the table, doing his best to keep his voice steady. "I was seventeen only a few years ago myself. I made stupid decisions and after the fact, questioned what in the hell lead me to do them. Even now, I still don't understand some of my decisions over the course of my life." He sighed, closing his eyes, tired from a sleepless night. "I want you kids...sorry. You young adults. I want you to understand your own actions. I want you to think about what you're doing, what you did, what you plan to do. You all are training to be Hunstmen and Huntresses. You're going to have a shit ton of responsibility heaped on you in this job. I want you to be ready for it and I want you to start by realizing and thinking back to what you could have done differently, what you could have done _better_. Don't let hindsight blind you to the present, but don't let your delusions of heroism and grandeur blind you from the future." He opened his eyes again. "Do you understand now, Yang, Blake? Why I'm trying to hammer these numbers and names into you? Why I kept asking what you were thinking, looking for answers that were actually answers and not deflections?" Max stood up, uncrossing his arms and walking over to the door. "You're to remain in here for the next two hours, the first of a handful of detentions. This one will be unsupervised, save for the cameras in the hall. I'll come pick the files up later or, if you want to try and get some brownie points from the asshole TA, you can put them back in mine and Atin's room when your detention period is done." He then walked out, quietly closing the door behind him.

* * *

Half an hour later, the sound of fabric rustling and papers and folders being shuffled around drew everyone's attention to Neptune, who was stood at the table with the duffel bag. "What are you doing? Looking to suck up to the TA?" Blake asked, her tone venomous.

Neptune turned to look at everyone, holding an open folder in his hands now. "Well, no, I just...he left these here. The bag's open. I guess I just…" He took a deep breath, trying to find the words. "What he said at the end, about what he wanted us to be. I want to see what our mission last night actually caused. I...want to understand, both the good things we did and the bad things we may have caused."

"Boy, some of these files are kinda thick… Hey, I think he left his scroll in here, it was in between these pages here." Sun pulled a scroll out of one of the folders. At some point, he had joined Neptune down at the table. He put it off to the side of the table, looking at the folder it had come out of. "Police statements and...interviews?" It was a bundle of papers, typed out in a script like format. He shrugged, setting it down beside the scroll.

Weiss began flipping through the folders, searching for something. "What are you looking for Weiss?" Ruby asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Any mention of _my_ ice. I'll see to it that they're taken care of, it's the least I can do." She put the folder down, making some quick notes on her scroll.

Yang walked over to the table, while Blake simply stayed at her own seat. Yang picked up the scroll Sun had found, accidentally opening it. She was notably confused when she wasn't greeted with a locked screen. "Hey, Max and Atin both keep their scrolls locked, don't they?" she asked.

"Why do you know that? That's kinda creepy Yang," Ruby piped up.

Yang rolled her eyes. "You don't keep yours locked, then, Ruby?"

"No, why would I? There isn't really anything interesting on there. If someone wants to see that I call Dad every week, let them."

"Okay, well you're the odd one out, back me up here Sun." Yang looked over at the Monkey Faunus.

"I mean, technically I do lock it, but the password is just 1111, so if someone really wanted to look at it, they could. I don't really care." Sun shrugged his shoulders before going back to leafing through the file in front of him.

"Weiss, they're crazy right? You have to lock yours right, miss important heiress?"

"Of course I keep my scroll locked, it contains proprietary information for the Schnee Dust company, as well as personal numbers for my family members." Weiss put down a folder after answering, rubbing her forehead. "Ruby, maybe you shouldn't look through these…"

"I have to, Weiss. For the same reason everyone does. We have to be better. What's the point of saving people if you just end up causing more harm than good?" Ruby reluctantly began picking up a folder.

Yang was about to stop Ruby, but stopped herself short. A brief inner struggle and she let her younger sister continue to look through the folders. In the meantime, Yang fiddled with the scroll, pulling up a number of audio files. She tapped one at random and the file began playing.

"This is Officer Harvey Dodger, in the process of collecting a statement from the parents and younger sister of Ciane Vera. Please state your names and relations to Ciane, for the record."

"Levi Vera, father."

"Dia Vera, mother."

"S-Sienna Vera, little sister." The fourth voice, a young child, sounded confused and distraught. Everyone stopped looking through folders, while Yang put down the scroll.

"Last night, at around ten you received a call from Ciane, letting you know that she was on her way to a late night rehearsal, yes?"

"Yes, officer," Levi answered, the sound of a chair scraping against the floor being heard in the background.

"And the next time you heard from her was around eleven thirty?"

"Yes. We received a call from Vale General and...Ciane was…" There was a choked sound from the father at this point, a stifled sob perhaps.

"A doctor contacted us before holding the phone up to Ciane's ear," Dia took over for her husband. "She was a bit out of it, something to do with painkillers. We tried making our way there as quickly as we could, but, well...the highway was, of course, closed. And then you and your partner came to our house and escorted us here, to get a statement."

"Mommy...where's Cici?" Sienna finally spoke up. "Why isn't she here?"

"Ciane is at the hospital, sweetie," Dia said, trying to soothe her youngest. "We'll be able to see her in just a little while, okay?"

"Really?" Sienna sounded like she had perked up. "Will she play my favorite song? Can we still go to her concert tomorrow?"

"Not tomorrow honey, she's… she's not feeling well, she'll need a little time before she can play a concert, or your favorite song." Dia's voice had slight tremble to it.

"Dia, we have to tell her. She deserves to know the truth." It was impossible to miss the sadness in Levi's deep voice.

"Tell me what, daddy? What should I know?" Sienna sounded curious more than anything.

"Levi, we _talked_ about this. This is _not_ the time for this conversation. We agreed on this." Dia was clearly on the verge of tears, trying to be strong.

"Then when is going to be the right time? There won't ever be a right time, better we tell her than making Ciane do it!" Levi was practically shouting in the recording.

"Mommy… Daddy… what's wrong? What's wrong with Cici? Please tell me." Sienna's voice cracked on the last word.

Officer Harvey cleared his throat loudly, but was ignored by the upset family. A chair scrape could be heard, followed by the soft click of a door.

"Sienna, your sister is… she won't… can't play in the concert tomorrow. Or any concert, ever. She got very hurt in the accident. She can't use her fingers." A different chair scrapped, as it sounded like Levi moved towards his daughter, facing away from the recording device.

"What do you mean she can't play, Daddy? But what about our song? She promised she would always play it for me, no matter what, so I didn't have to be sad anymore…" Sienna began crying, and the recording kept going for several minutes, the sounds of the family's crying filling the room. The recording eventually ended, the scroll moving back to the files, leaving the room in silence.

* * *

"Guys, we have to make sure something like this never happens again. Even if we didn't mean for this to happen, it did, and all we can do is learn from it. So what are we gonna do differently next time, as a team, to keep something like this from happening again?" Ruby looked at her teammates assembled around her room.

"Well we clearly need to be more careful about where we fight. We should have done more to get Roman out of such a populated area. And some of us need to be more mindful of what we do, and who else it could affect when we do it. Having a backup plan other than 'hit them' would probably be a good idea as well," Weiss said.

"I suppose we should probably be more willing to try talking to the faculty at least, rather than just going off on our own," Blake admitted grudgingly.

"And so that someone at least knows where we are," Yang added on.

"Right! Let's work on lowering the collateral damage we do from now on. Maybe we can ask for some suggestions from other teams and some of the teachers, too!" Ruby said, wrapping up this impromptu meeting.


	17. Chapter 17

"So Glynda, why did you want to talk us? What new fire do we have to put out?" Atin tipped his chair back from the table, arms crossed behind his head.

"Team CRDL isn't starting shit again, are they? Because I'm pretty sure their mentors would be cross if so," Max added in, choosing to lean forward onto the table.

"Don't tell us, we want to guess! They started another fight on the docks! Your guess, Max." Atin hid his grin well, maintaining a deadpan.

"They had another food fight, but this time there were actual injuries?"

"They got another world famous criminal locked up?"

"You know, I almost felt bad about signing you two up for the exhibition match, but with that little display, you have removed any lingering guilt I had." Glynda glared at the two.

Max was suddenly sitting straighter in his chair, looking at his co-worker. "That's some, uh, interesting workplace humor there, Glynda," he said, trying to gauge her reaction.

"It sounded a lot like you just said we have an exhibition match. As in, combat. Something we are woefully unqualified for, as Qrow's ever climbing body count can attest to." Atin dropped to floor, no longer relaxed. "More importantly, you know all this, including the fact that we are not in fact, huntsmen. So what possessed you to have us do an exhibition bout? Because we will die. Messily, and screaming. That won't look good on the yearly student review."

"Everything he just said, plus the fact we still haven't got any weapons, except for my scroll," Max pointed out.

"About that, General Ironwood was having some trouble getting the items you requested through customs. It would seem the City is… hesitant to ship fully automatic rifles to our school. I'm not sure why, given some of our students' ammunition requests. But he was able to get you something for the upcoming bout." WIth that, Glynda handed each of them what was unmistakably a standard issue Atlas infantry sidearm.

"A pistol? Glynda, you want us to fight whoever the hell is gonna fight us, with nothing but pistols. What did we do to deserve this? Is it the sarcasm? You could have asked me to tone it down, as opposed to arranging our actual deaths. And Max did nothing to you. That I know of," Atin said.

"I'm hoping this little match will help Max get out of this depressive funk of his. Some of the students are noticing and it seems to be slightly impacting them at this point."

"Max is always depressed! That happens when you're a million miles from home and faced with a sudden case of constant death. It wears the psyche down just a tad, ya know? Quite frankly I'm amazed we've held up as well as we have! I haven't even lost my temper at anyone. Or at least, anyone that didn't cause a mass casualty incident. And how on earth is getting humiliated and murdered supposed to fix his depression anyway?" Atin stared dumbfounded at his boss.

"First off, yeah, how does that help me in anyway? Second, I haven't really been that bad...have I?" Max asked.

"Max, Mercury noticed. _Mercury._ You have been pretty bad."

"Mercury? Really? He never made mention of it to me."

"Yes well, hate to break the tough guy facade, but I overheard him muttering to himself about how you were depressing even him. He really should stop talking to himself, terrible habit. Never know who might be listening. Regardless, getting this back on track, who are we stuck fighting, Glynda?" Atin inquired.

"The two of you will be fighting team CRDL. Given your training sessions with Qrow, you might actually be able to fight them, given that they are the currently lowest ranked team in my class," Glynda went back to explaining, looking at her tablet/scroll.

"Glynda, they have Aura. We don't. How are we supposed to beat them? If Cardin even touches us with that mace, we will go from teacher to chunky salsa in seconds! Just because I will come back doesn't mean I'm keen on dying, at all," Atin said.

Max, meanwhile, was looking at the pistol that had been handed to him, inspecting it. "Wait, are these forty-fives?" he muttered, somewhat surprised he and Atin were being given permission to use these, even if it was against super-powered beings.

"Max, forty-five or not, we are fighting people who can shrug it off. We might as well be shooting Wesker for all the good these will do us! At least Glynda gave us live rounds. We can make them bleed. If they bleed, we can kill them. Or at least knock them out." Atin placed the gun on the table, feeling slightly better about his chances. "So when's this exhibition? Do I have time to write my will?"

"Wills are useless," Max said.

"I suppose they are. So how much time do we have Glynda?" Atin inquired.

"Class starts in a half hour, I expect you to two to be there on time. Also, as the bout will be broadcast, I expect you two to clean up. You're representing the school after all." Glynda strode out of the room.

"Wait, broadcast?!" Max shouted, standing up and knocking his chair back in the process.

"Max, I think we've got trouble, oh I say trouble, right here in Beacon Academy," Atin slumped in his seat. "I'm gonna go see if I can't shake Winter down for some forty-five caliber dust rounds. Maybe that will help us. Go get us some more ammo from the armory would you? We're gonna need it."

"Isn't Winter still in the middle of some kind of investigation?"

"I'm about to contract a sudden case of mace-face, Max, she is the least of our problems." Atin stomped down the hallway, muttering under his breath.

Max rubbed at his chin, before deciding to make his way to the armory and his stash of lockers to prepare.

* * *

"Oh, I don't want to see Mr. Atin or Mr. Max die. This is going to be terrible! Why would they sign up for this?" Ruby asked her friends.

Weiss sighed, shaking her head. "Knowing those two, this probably wasn't actually their idea," she pointed out calmly. "Nevermind Atin, Max has always seemed pretty non-confrontational. I feel like even Atin would only fight if provoked."

"I can't wait to see how strong they are. They have to be at least half as good as the professors! They're TA's at Beacon Academy after all!" Nora pulled a sign from nowhere, along with popcorn.

"Nora, how do you keep sneaking popcorn in here? And share?" Yang asked, eyeing the crumpled paper bag.

Jaun began an explosive coughing fit, before muttering under his breath, "They are going to make such a mess of the arena."

"Given the 'advice' Mr. Winchester has given me, I'm actually a little concerned for Cardin's safety. He might have been a bully, but I don't think he deserves what those two will to do them," Ren said, misinterpreting Jaune's comment.

* * *

"Well Max, Winter was surprisingly helpful. I got a magazine of dust rounds. One. Fire. But it's better than nothing." Atin tossed the magazine to Max. "You're probably a better shot than I am. Hand me some of that ammo, would you please?"

"Yeah, sure. You want ice, fire, gravity, or lightning dust rounds?" Max asked.

"Where did you get that ammo from? How? It's a pain in the ass to get, especially in a thirty minute window. By which I mean impossible, unless you say, ask a member of the Schnee family." Atin stared at Max, perplexed.

"Hey, I have a surplus of money every week, Atin, and I never said I had the ammunition on hand. I spend my money on things other than baking supplies, I'll have you know." Max loaded a magazine into his pistol, then tossed a magazine of regular bullets to Atin.

"Let's get this over with, I want to go ask Ozpin why he okayed this for broadcast." Atin turned to face the door, a resigned look on his face.

"Well, it could be worse. Could have pitted us against a second- or third-year team." Though he said it with feigned confidence, Max winced at how stupid that really sounded out loud.

Both taking one last breath, they walked through the doorway and out to the arena.

* * *

"Alright, Team CRDL, what's the first rule of terrain on the battlefield?" Max's voice came out of the speaker system of the arena, surprising the students watching the exhibition match.

"Are...are they all wearing mics or something?" Yang asked, confused as everyone else right from the match's start.

"Um, use the terrain to your advantage, sir?" came the somewhat hesitant reply from Sky.

"That's correct. How about rule number two?" Max had his scroll out, casually typing something out with his thumb, eyes on Team CRDL.

"Oh, I know this one! If the enemy is using it, blow it up! Xcom taught me that." Atin chimed in, looking over Max's shoulder.

Max shrugged. "We'll call that Rule One A. CRDL, rule two?"

"There's a rule two?" Dove asked, sharing his team's confusion.

This confusion was mirrored in the stands, even Glynda seeming somewhat confused. Peter coughed a bit, having been asked by Ozpin to commentate on the match for the broadcast, rubbing his chin.

Max grinned, his thumb making a final tap. "Rule two: if there is no terrain, then make your own."

Beside Ren, Nora was scribbling this down in a notepad she had brought with her, while everyone else looked at Max as if he was crazy.

A loud series of eleven THUNK'S echoed through the stadium in quick succession, causing some people to jump in their seats. There were now lockers littering the arena. "Max, you realize that Glynda _will_ charge for the ceiling, right?" Atin asked.

"Wait, is he allowed to do that?" Weiss asked, looking at her team and Team JNPR beside them.

"I mean, maybe? There isn't a rule against it as far as I know. It certainly never came up on the tournament circuit," Pyrrha replied, sounding confused.

* * *

"Final rule, I promise," Max said, tapping on his scroll again. "Never stand near your enemy's terrain."

A locker that had landed right behind Team CRDL beeped, the boys turning to look behind themselves in fear. With a _click_ , the locker door slowly swung open. And deposited cookies onto the battlefield.

"Max, did you think we were fighting team RWBY? 'Cause that doesn't help. At all. In the slightest. Also, you have now deployed a locker full of cookies on national television. I hope you're proud." Atin began lightly banging his head on a nearby locker.

"Uh, just to warn you, _that_ one could hold the explosives I was hoping they were in the other locker there," Max said, coughing into his hand a bit to hide some small amount of embarrassment.

"Where did you…no, I don't want to know. In fact, it's better if I don't know." Atin quickly backed away from the locker.

"Is this a joke to you two? You aren't gonna take us even remotely seriously?" A very annoyed Cardin asked the two.

"In my defense, Cardin, I really did think that was the explosive payload…" Max looked at his scroll, then at the pistol in his right hand. "Oh, right...match has started." And with that, he unloaded half of his magazine into Russell, catching the teen off guard, before diving towards a cluster of three lockers to hide behind.

"God DAMNIT Max!" Atin shouted, leaping behind the possibly explosive locker, looking for the manual release, hoping it contained the promised payload.

"Stop joking around!" Cardin began running straight at Atin, seemingly unconcerned about the locker's contents, his mace held high, ready to smash it straight down.

"Oh shit!" Atin cried out, fumbling with the locker door, finally finding the catch. With a soft _click_ the locker opened to reveal a multitude of bullets, of all calibers, spilling forth in front of it. Cardin, mid-charge, was unprepared for the terrain to become so slippery, and promptly began windmilling his arm, desperately trying to keep from falling over backwards. Atin promptly began shooting the young man, unwilling to let a golden opportunity pass in the name of sportsmanship.

Meanwhile, Max managed to open one of the lockers he was hiding behind, trying to keep an eye on the rest of Team CRDL, who had spread out a bit. Downside, there was nothing of use. Upside, if he wanted to hide in the locker, he could. "Fuck, I really need to get these organized better!" Max grunted, shooting the rest of his magazine at Sky, who ducked behind a locker of his own.

After a quick reload, Max took a look at the locker Sky had chosen, squinting and just barely making out what it's identification code was. He tapped his scroll again, telling the locker to open. And with a smile, he aimed his pistol carefully as a pile of dust crystals of varying elements spilled out. "Fire in the hole!" he bellowed, unleashing a few shots at the pile, then ducking back behind his cluster of lockers as the crystals violently exploded.

"Is he insane? That's absurdly dangerous! That is practically lethal force, and he used it against a student in an exhibition fight!" Weiss stared dumbfounded at the arena floor, eyeing the monitors as the smoke cleared from the Dust explosion, her voice faintly reaching Glynda over the sound of the explosion.

Unsurprisingly, the locker had been blown back, taking Sky with it on its way out of the arena. The locker had taken the brunt of the explosion, leaving Sky with significantly more Aura than would have been expected, while the locker was nearly in tatters. "Sky Lark has been knocked out of the arena," Glynda calmly announced, pinching the bridge of her nose. If she'd known just how quickly Max was willing to escalate in this match, she may not have arranged it at all.

Atin, not expecting the explosion, was thrown onto his side, as was Cardin. Atin began slowly climbing to his feet, a trickle of blood coming from his nose, stumbling back behind the locker. Cardin, his Aura having absorbed the explosion stood up with significantly less difficulty, was shouting something no-one on the floor could understand, his eyes moving quickly around the lockers, unsure of where the TA had gone to ground.

Atin quickly found the catch on the newest locker, hoping it was something useful. The locker opened, and a truly absurd assortment of knives spilled out, along with what may have been a taser or three, ball bearings, small boxes of caltrops, even a sword or two, boxes of matches, and an emergency fire blanket.

"Max, why did you pack a locker full of knives and camping equipment?" Atin yelled across the arena, before realizing that would in fact, tell Cardin where he was.

Max was unable to answer, however, due to the ringing in his ears, having been a fair bit closer to what was a much larger explosion than expected. "What?" he yelled, most everything he could hear reduced to a dull muffle for the time being.

Atin quickly began ripping open boxes of caltrops and ball bearings, throwing them around himself.

"I won't fall for the same trick twice! I will make you take this seriously!" Cardin began kicking the ball bearings out of his way, simply stomping the caltrops flat, using his mace to block the incoming bullets. Atin used the time Cardin spent removing ball bearings to grab two of the tasers, and a knife that looked suspiciously like a gladius. He then began running over towards Max, and more importantly, some unopened lockers.

Max, meanwhile, worked on one of the two remaining lockers he'd chosen to hide behind, the door opening. Inside was a pile of fire dust crystals, Max groaning, already tired of seeing dust crystals after his last interaction with them. He grabbed them by the handful, throwing them towards Russell and Dove, who immediately dove away from the crystals. By the time Max had thrown them all out, Atin was beside him.

"So good news, we are technically winning right now. Bad news. Cardin is both still standing, and very pissed. The bullets aren't doing much. Any idea how his Aura's doing? Or was Glynda mean enough to block us from looking at that down here?" Atin slid into cover by his friend, firing blindly over the lockers.

Max shook his head. The ringing was still there, but he could now hear Atin properly. "Dunno, haven't checked. Kept my locker screen up this entire time," Max replied, reloading his pistol with the magazine of fire dust that Atin had given him at the start of the match.

"Okay, so I have a plan for Cardin. But it's real dumb. How confident are you at dodging a giant mace buddy?" Atin asked.

"Not very."

"Then you get the tasers. We've seen that physical objects can go through Aura. So I'm gonna keep his attention. You tase the shit out of him until he's a twitching mess. Hopefully I don't die. That would be… unfortunate. Can't believe Ozpin is broadcasting this. Got it?" Atin sat up in a sprinters crouch, looking sideways at his friend.

Max held one of the tasers in his right hand, holding the pistol in his offhand now. "Just hope I don't miss, then," Max said, readying the taser.

"Well aren't you mister reassuring. Here I go." Atin took off at a full sprint, charging right at a surprised Cardin. He leapt over Cardin, barely clearing the young man's head, landing behind and continuing to run, firing blindly back at the young man. "Come on mister heavy armor, keep up!" Atin shouted back at the bewildered student.

Max steadied his aim, pulling the trigger on the taser. The darts flew out, nailing Cardin and sticking to his armor. With another pull, the taser unleashed its volts, locking Cardin's muscles as he began to twitch and spasm. Once the taser ran out of juice, Cardin fell face first onto the ground, now unconscious, slightly drooling. Max looked at the taser in hand, whistling. "I need to get some more of these," he muttered, dropping the now spent taser.

* * *

"How are they doing this? They're just… normal people. But they're taking a team of Huntsmen apart like it's nothing. They look like they aren't even trying!" Ruby looked at the rest of her friends, making sure to keep her voice down.

"Actually, they look like they're getting lucky," Ren pointed out, his arms crossed as he watched the exhibition match. "Mr. Max did say that he needed to organize the lockers earlier, didn't he? Which means each time they've opened a locker, it's been essentially random chance as to what would be in there."

"Although they did at least plan how to take Cardin out, even if it was rather risky and last minute. My instructors would have some… interesting things to say to them." Pyrrha chimed in.

* * *

Atin stopped sprinting after a moment, looking behind him. "Well I didn't expect that to work on the first try. Hey Max, we better wrap this up quick. You left the the oven on didn't you?" Atin yelled across the arena, ducking down behind an empty locker, which left the remaining members of CRDL caught between them.

"Like hell I did," Max replied, looking for the last half of Team CRDL. They had wisely chosen to hide behind lockers for the time being while Max and Atin had been focused on Cardin.

"Well, it looks like this is gonna be a good old fashioned western, unless you actually have a locker of explosives." Atin poked his head over the locker, only to be greeted by a spray of bullets.

Max worked the latch on the remaining locker he was hiding behind. Seeing the locker full of ice dust ammunition, he began pocketing magazines, unloading his fire dust and loading up some ice dust. "Alright, this could work." He grabbed a few more magazines, wondering if he'd be able to throw them to Atin. Max pulled back, then threw forward, the magazines all flying apart and landing haphazardly around the arena. "Well, fuck…"

"I've had enough of this. Lets see what Mr. Force hid in this locker." Dove pried locker open, which opened to reveal a large number of MRE packets. "What the hell? What is this?" Dove stared at the locker, baffled. "Russel, what's in your locker?" he asked.

"Lets see." Russell simply ripped the door off his locker, throwing it Max.

Max ducked down, having only just seen it in time. "What the fuck, Russell?! Who throws lockers?" After a moment, realization dawned. "Oh...right, yeah, I'll just shut up…"

Russell stared at the contents of the locker, a wicked smile on his face. He noticed there was a detonator as well and he picked it up, his thumb held just above the red button. "Pretty sure we got the best locker, Dove," Russell said, grabbing one of the explosives and chucking it towards Atin's hiding spot. It sailed over the locker, landing just behind the TA. Russell pressed down on the detonator, before noticing that none of the detonators were synced. "Who sends a bunch of explosives with unsynced detonators to a combat zone?" Russell yelled at Max.

"The same guy who forgot to organize the lockers in the first place!" Max yelled back, taking aim with his ice dust ammunition and unloading the magazine. Every round managed to hit the locker Russell dived back behind in response to the gunshots. "Fuck, I'm a southerner, I'm not supposed to be this bad at aiming!"

"I literally have no depth perception, and I'm pretty sure I have better accuracy percentage than you right now." Atin yelled across the room at Max.

"Then start shooting!"

"No! If I miss it'll ruin my percentage! Gotta pad them stats." Atin peeked around the locker to make sure the two students weren't trying to rush them. After a few tense minutes of silence, Atin decided to act. "Max, cover me!" Atin yelled, sprinting out from his locker towards Max.

"Wait, what?!" Max yelled back, completely missing what Atin had requested.

Dove, hearing the confusion, stuck his head up and began firing at Atin. He fired rapidly, hitting Atin in the thigh. Atin fell, just barely making it into cover, but not before getting hit again in the ankle. Atin bit into his lip, just barely keeping himself from screaming and collapsing into a ball. He just managed to wheeze out "Great… covering… fire."

"Fuck off, you ran out without any warning," Max chided. He peeked around the cluster, his eyes widening. He had completely forgotten about the piles of fire dust crystals he'd thrown around Russell and Dove just a few minutes prior. He pulled out the magazine of fire dust Atin had given him before the fight and loaded it into his pistol. He hit a pile of crystals right between the two remaining members of team CRDL, the explosion knocking out a good chunk of their aura. Max clicked his tongue in disappointment. "Was really hoping that'd be close enough to some other crystals to set off a chain."

"Yeah… Me, too, man. We gotta wrap this up, it's not making for good viewing, and Glynda is looking antsy up there. You just knocked a chunk off them, rush'em. I'll cover you. I would do the rushing, but, they winged me. I'm not gonna be doing a whole lot of running for now." Atin began quickly ripping part of his sleeve up for a makeshift bandage, quickly tying it off so as not to bleed out.

Max loaded another magazine of ice dust, holding the pistol ready. "Okay, let me know when you're good to cover me." Max grabbed the locker door Russell had thrown, gripping it a bit awkwardly.

Atin loaded an ice dust magazine, slowly turned himself over, one hand braced to quickly pull himself up. "Ready as I'm gonna be, let's get this over with. I'll try to distract them. Go." Atin looked at his friend, waiting for his signal.

"Okay, let's hope this doesn't end horribly on live television. Now!"

"Time for some misdirection. Grenade out!" Atin yelled at the end of his thought, pulling himself and bracing the pistol against the locker.

"You don't have any grenades in these lockers! Just a hundred grappling hooks! For some reason!" Dove shouted, peeking out from the cover.

"They were on sale, for fuck's sake!" Max yelled as he swung out from the lockers, positioning the locker door in front of his body as he bull rushed Dove first. He fired at Dove, using the holes in the locker door to take shaky aim at the boy. The ice dust exploded along Dove's right arm, encasing it in ice, including his weapon. And Max didn't bother slowing down.

Dove made a bit of an awkward roll to his left, getting out of the way of the TA that was trying to run him down, but that also took him fully out of cover.

Atin, never one to waste a golden opportunity, shifted his aim towards the hapless student. Atin began firing, but was unable to land a solid shot on a part of the student that was not covered by ice, succeeding only in weighing the young man down further.

Max, meanwhile, made a hard turn to rush at Russell, holstering his pistol and grabbing the locker door with both hands. Lowering his center of gravity and bracing his shoulder against the door, he ran full bore into Russell, lifting the much skinnier male off his feet and carrying him to the edge of arena. Just before Max could fully get Russell off the stage, Russell managed to plant his feet, halting the TAs advance. "Oh, come on, you couldn't just take a dive?!" Max exclaimed, no longer caring about the mic.

With an unusual deftness, Max tossed the locker door up slightly and then caught it near the end, swinging fully around to slam the locker door into a surprised Russell. The teenager caught himself in time, moving with the locker door to get away from the edge of the arena and out of range of the locker door. "Like hell I'd do something like that!" Russell shouted back, readying his knives. Russell rushed at Max with both daggers, intent on impaling Max's shoulders.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Max quickly dropped to a knee, the daggers sailing over his head. As Russell's momentum carried him further over Max, Max attempted to grab him, but Russell managed to use his momentum to sail clear over the TA's head.

Russell quickly turned and this time, managed to plunge his daggers at the TA successfully. What was unexpected, however, was the daggers sinking into the shoulders and drawing blood. Max yelled in pain, his other leg falling out from under him from the pain. The upside of this was that Russell would have a harder time getting the TA to ring out. The downside, the daggers were buried pretty good and went with the body they were in.

Max grunted, his right hand finding his pistol again. He pulled it out, hoping there were still some bullets in the magazine as he raised it and placed it under Russell's chin. He pulled the trigger and was rewarded with the bullet kicking Russell's head back. The impact and subsequent freezing, along with the blood that he hadn't been expecting now coating them, caused Russell's grip to slip off both daggers. Max fired again, rewarded with another bullet, this one hitting Russell's chest. A third pull revealed that the magazine was empty, however.

Max dropped the pistol, gritting his teeth at the feel of the daggers. With some effort, Max stood up, taking a step towards Russell. He lifted his right leg and planted it into Russell's chest, pushing with all his might to knock the young man out of the arena. Somehow, someway, Russell fell back and out, leaving Max to stand there, amazed that he'd somehow gotten through alive.

* * *

As Max bull rushed Russell, Atin began limping towards dove, but foot was unable to take the weight, even at slow pace. He fell to the ground, landing heavily on his knees barely keeping himself from falling over. He slowly began standing, placing all his weight on his uninjured leg, levering himself up as Dove began angrily punching the ice keeping both him and his weapon pinned to the ground. A few small chips flew off, but the unfavorable position robbed his blows of much of their strength. Atin began hobbling forward, putting as little wait on his leg as possible.

"Sorry about this Dove. This isn't is gonna be fun for you."

As Atin continued hobbling, Dove began punching the ice more frantically, still unable to break himself free. He watched as the Student Teacher slowly came towards him, an unpleasant look in his eyes. Dove stared upwards as Atin shuffled into view. He noticed the impromptu bandage, and the way the Student Teacher kept his weight off his leg. He tried to punch him in the injured leg, but Atin awkwardly hopped out of reach, watching as the young man strained to hit him.

"Trying to hit my leg I assume. Smart. Unfortunately, you're gonna have to be a little more clever when you try to exploit something like that. I assure you, having hobbled over here, I wasn't about to let myself get taken down with a cheap shot." Atin brought the pistol up, his arm shaking slightly from the pain, before methodically pinning the young man with ice, first his other arm, then his legs. "Does this count as unable to fight yet? I kinda don't want to keep shooting one of the students when they can't do anything." Atin looked over towards Glynda, unconcerned with the now thoroughly pinned Dove.

"As his aura isn't reduced far enough, it shall be Mr. Bronzewing's choice. He may continue the match in his current state or yield. If he believes he can turn this around, I see no reason to not let him continue," Glynda answered, raising her voice slightly to ensure that Atin would be able to hear her over what sounded like Max screaming in pain.

Dove strained against the ice imprisoning him, his body lifting upwards, his face turning red from the effort. He tried this twice more, the ice doing little more than dripping cold water onto the floor. He looked over at Atin, who sat down near his head, gun not quite aimed at his head. "I give up. I'm not strong enough to bust this ice. And I really don't want to get shot in the face today," Dove said, sighing in acceptance.

* * *

"Listen to everyone around us! They think those two are some kind of combat geniuses! Did they even listen to any of their conversations? Clearly they were just getting by on luck!" Weiss was fuming, staring in disbelief at her fellow students.

"I kinda figured they weren't much for combat, but this is kind of ridiculous," came a voice beside teams RWBY and JNPR. Turning, they saw it was Jade, someone who they recognized as an upperclassmen, but their interactions with her were at a minimum. In fact, the only reason they knew who she was was in part due to her visiting the TAs on a regular basis. "What about you guys? You buying this like everyone else?" After a moment of silence, the two teams realized she was looking at them and waiting for an answer.

"Of course not! Just listen to what they were saying! They had no idea what they were doing, it was just pure dumb luck." Weiss snorted, glancing back at the arena to see the two TAs hobbling off the stage with the help of some third years that Glynda had motioned down from the stands.

"Um...you're, uh, Jade, right?" Ruby spoke up, drawing Jade's attention.

With a smile and a nod, Jade replied, "Yeah, that's me. Surprised you remember my name. Pretty sure we've only interacted two, maybe three times, right? You're Ruby, right?"

Ruby nodded, smiling at being remembered. "Yeah! Of Team RWBY!"

"Oh, I know. You lot are one of the more… memorable first year teams. You and your team certainly have been busy this year, haven't you?" Jade said. "And how about your friends? I recognize you four since you're on the same hall as the TAs, but I don't think we've actually met at all. I'm Jade." She squinted her eyes at Pyrrha. "You look kinda familiar, though…"

"Oh, I'm Pyrrha! It's a pleasure to meet you. You've probably just seen me around is all." Pyrrha replied, thrilled to have run into someone else with no idea who she was.

"My name is Lie Ren, most people call me Ren. It's nice to meet you." Ren said.

"I'm Jaune, hi," Jaune introduced himself next. "We're all team JNPR, by the way."

"And I'm Nora! It's great to meet you!" Nora said, posing on the back of her chair.

"Well, nice to meet all of you, then. Hope you lot stick around Beacon through graduation," Jade said at the end of the introductions.

"Hey, Jade? We see you pretty often on our hall, but I don't think we've ever seen your team. You...do have a team, right?" Yang asked, curious about their new possible friend.

Jade scratched her cheek, chuckling nervously. "Ah, yeah, I have a team, they're just...I'm pretty sure they ditched to go to the comic shop in Vale…" Jade mumbled the answer out, a bit embarrassed.

"Do they even interact with Mr. Max and Mr. Atin?" Ruby asked.

"Um, yeah, they do. Just not usually at their room. And, on Sunday mornings, they always send me to pick up the cookies." Jade crossed her arms again, looking at the arena to see that the participants were still in somewhat of a deadlock. "Speaking of our TAs, I wonder why they never activated their Aura. I'm not surprised Cardin was yelling about them not taking this seriously. It was really stupid of them to do that, especially seeing how they won through luck."

Team's RWBY and JNPR quickly glanced at each other, unsure how to respond.

"Yes well, those two are rather full of themselves. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Mr. Winchester talked Max into not using their Aura to 'put on a good show' or something dumb like that," Blake chimed in.

Jade sighed. "Yeah...yeah, I could see that happening…"

* * *

Ozpin looked across his desk at the two TAs sitting in chairs. "Well, I must admit the numbers you two posted are impressive. Some of the best the school has ever seen in fact. There wasn't really much of a precedence for this, but still far and away the most impressive ones I've been able to dig up." Ozpin continued flipping through the papers in his hands. He turned one page around, which displayed a line graph of some kind, with a large number circled in red at the top. "In fact, we did so well, I'm not even going to charge Mr. Force for the roof repairs."

"I had daggers...in my shoulders, Ozpin," Max said, staring at the headmaster.

"I was shot. Twice. I had to shoot a student into submission. I'm pretty sure he suffered some nerve damage from that. I don't exactly feel good about that Ozpin. Although the business student in me is happy that our numbers are excellent." Atin glared at Ozpin."I would however like to ask just one question if I may professor."

Ozpin took a sip from his mug. "And what might that be, Mr. Winchester?"

Atin cleared his throat slightly before projecting his question "What the fuck is wrong with you? We have no Aura, we could have died in front of the student body, and you _televised_ the event?"

"We had the utmost faith in the abilities of those present."

"I am legally blind in one eye!" Atin was unaware of the tic that his eye had developed.

Ozpin raised an eyebrow, waiting for Atin to finish his retort. Upon realizing that was the extent, Ozpin lowered the eyebrow. "I was certain, at the very least, that we'd be able to cut the broadcast before your actual deaths, if nothing else. And I'm certain Glynda would have easily handled the student body and explanations concerning your seeming deaths."

"Oh I would love to see her explain away my brain on Cardin's mace. As it stands, everyone saw Max get stabbed, and me get shot! I suppose, what I'm trying to get at here, is why in the name of God you put us through that and televised it. I'm really hoping you have an amazing explanation for us." Atin looked expectantly at Ozpin.

"As it stands, there was actually an idea. First of all, it allowed to me show to certain concerned individuals that you do have at least some small measure of combat potential. Secondly, a different group has been trying to find out more about you two, and this should quite thoroughly baffle them. Lastly, suddenly paying for, and housing two brand new TA's has left something of a hole in our budget, and this fixed it quite nicely." Ozpin took a slow sip of his coffee.

"I smell bullshit and I don't know which parts I can call it on," Max said, his scroll now in his hand.

"About the only one I'm willing to buy is the budget one. I somehow doubt that any of the 'concerned parties' watched that shitshow, and if they did, I very much doubt we instilled any confidence in them, and/or caused quaking of boots, respectively." Atin leaned over to see what was on Max's scroll. "Max, it won't work. These windows are very shatterproof. I tried. Good thought though. Also, just how many spare lockers did you steal from the school?"

"Enough." Max looked down at his scroll, at the big red **FIRE** button that he'd talked someone into programming into the locker call program for him. With a sigh, he put it away. "Well, at least now we know that our power also heals us from serious injuries. Though I can still feel the daggers sometimes," Max noted, rolling his shoulders. "Not pleasant."

"You know what, Ozpin? I'll do something I don't normally do. I'll believe someone in a position of Authority. For now anyway. Just as long as we get to see some actual results from this." Atin stood up from his chair, heading towards the elevators. With nothing to add, Max stood up and followed Atin into the elevator.

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Atin: We don't normally do these, just wanted to let everyone know that the story isn't dead, the two us have just been busy with work and life. That is all, carry on.**

 **Max: For the fight scene, a majority of the interactions and every locker, save for the cookie one, we rolled dice for. So that was interesting for on the fly writing.**


	18. Chapter 18

"Glynda, how long did our TA's say they would be gone? I did have a few projects for them to get done over the break." Ozpin relaxed in his office, enjoying the peace and quiet of the nearly empty school.

Glynda consulted her oversized scroll before responding. "The note they left said they would be gone for the entire break actually. The post script said 'sorry, hope you don't need us', ended with what I can only assume is a sarcastic smiley face."

"Hmm." Ozpin stared at the wall in thought for a moment. "I do hope they don't get into any trouble. Did they mention anything else to you concerning their trip?"

"I believe they mentioned something about conferences, but I admit to being a bit confused on what exactly they said or even meant."

* * *

"Well the good news is both your daughters have improved academically, but we came out here to discuss their… extracurricular choices." Atin leaned forward in his chair, adopting what he hoped was a concerned expression.

"And these choices would be…?" Taiyang prompted, a mug of coffee held relaxed in his hand.

"I'm sure by now you've heard the news that Roman Torchwick was the cause of significant property damage and numerous casualties after rampaging through the city in giant robot, yes?"

"Just because Patch is small town doesn't mean we don't get the news out here. It was on almost every channel." Taiyang looked somewhat annoyed at the assumption he would have missed hearing about such a large event.

Max coughed, taking over the conversation for a moment. "Well, Mr. Xiao Long, it's with some regret that I have to inform your daughters' team was involved in said incident."

"And by involved we mean the cause of, sole participants, and eventual victors of the fight. They broke a lot of stuff." Atin employed less tact than Max for delivering the news.

The evening did not improve from there.

* * *

"Ya know Max, I feel like we aren't exactly welcome here. We should probably take care of our conference and go." Atin gazed around uneasily, conscious of the number of stares the only two non-fauns were getting while deboarding on Menagerie.

"Why, whatever could you mean, Atin?" Max asked, rolling his eyes.

"Okay, one, stop stealing my schtick, and two, they do know we're coming in right? I don't want to get up there and get thrown out. Cause then we have to break in, and that will probably not go well for us."

"Don't worry, I sent a letter ahead of us a couple weeks ago. We should be fine, at least as far as getting to meet with the Belladonnas goes. As long as it got here. I hope it got here."

"Knowing our luck the courier got eaten, and we'll be treated like door to door crystal salesmen. Oh well, better get this over with." Atin strolled off down the path, not looking to see if Max was following.

After a brisk twenty minute stroll, they arrived at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Belladonna guards narrowed their eyes, glaring at the two humans that were, for some reason, approaching the Chieftain's house. "State your business." The guards crossed their spears, blocking the stairs up.

"So my name is Atin, and that's Max. We're here for the parent teacher conference with the Belladonnas". Atin somewhat nervously eyed the stoic guards.

One of them consulted a scroll, before pulling back the spear. "Go on in. We'll be watching you."

The two of them proceeded up to the front doors before stopping awkwardly in front of the massive slabs of wood.

Atin looked at Max. "I guess we just… go in? Feels kinda rude."

"Use the knocker, I guess." Max grabbed the knocker with a hand, surprised momentarily at how heavy it was. He lifted it and gave a solid slam on the door with it. A loud thud echoed dully off the doors.

Several minutes passed before Kalia answered the door. "Oh, you must be Atin and Max. Please come in." She guided them into the small meeting room off the main entrance hall. Ghira was already in the room, waiting for them.

"Please, tell us, is our daughter alright?" Ghira asked almost before the door even closed, staring at the two intently.

"Okay, so we have good news, bad news, more good news, some really bad news, and another round of good news. What order do you want them in?" Atin stated.

Ghira glared at Atin. "How. Is. My. Daughter."

"She is both alive and no longer dating a terrorist, or being one. She's fine, now anyway." Atin hurriedly spoke, trying to calm the angry father.

Ghira gave a sigh of relief, before his eyes bulged as Atin's statement finally registered in his brain. "She isn't _what_ now?!" he shouted, his hands slamming down onto the table, now leaning towards Atin.

"Oh shit, right, you guys don't know that the Vale Branch of the White Fang are, in fact, working with Roman Torchwick…. Surprise? Please don't shoot the messenger. Or maim them." Atin began slowly sliding behind Max.

Max cleared his throat, scooting away from Atin. "We probably could have handled that a little better, but yes, as Atin said, your daughter's ex is currently a terrorist and she herself is an ex-terrorist," Max calmly explained. "She's also one of her year's better students, academically speaking, but we have some concerns with her extracurricular activities."

"By which we mean this." Atin quickly pulled out his scroll, setting it to play the video footage from the highway incident.

After a few minutes, Ghira's right hand was resting on his face. "Please tell me she wasn't in the robot..." he moaned, while Kali was patting his back.

"I can happily report that she was not in the robot. In fact, she stopped it, which is great, except that we later learned she and her team were the reason it was on the highway in the first place." Atin replied.

"And that they managed to assist in destroying a couple of load-bearing pillars," Max added.

"In the spirit of just ripping that bandaid off, they also got a lot of people hurt. But they didn't _technically_ kill anyone. All deaths were the fault of Roman." Atin chimed in.

"What do you mean they _technically_ didn't kill anyone?" Ghira managed to growl out between clenched teeth. "What did they do?"

"Well, it started with them finding out about a recruitment meeting for the White Fang," Max started, taking the next twenty or so minutes to fully line out what occurred that night.

The two T.A.'s had gotten steadily more and more nervous during the course of the conversation, as Ghira grew more and more outraged. At the same time, Kali grew more and more disappointed, her expression reflecting as such.

Atin leaned over to Max and whispered "Why do i feel like she's disappointed in us? We aren't the ones that caused a rampage. We tried to stop them. 'Go to the police' we said. 'Ozpin can get the info to the cops' we said. But no one listens to the T.A." Atin grumbled. Max simply shrugged in response.

"I can hear you, you know." Khali chimed in. "I do appreciate everything you've done for our daughter, especially bringing us news of where she is. But I do have to ask, why didn't the school inform us of her acceptance?"

"Well, it's possible the courier was… lost in transit. As I'm sure you're well aware, Menagerie is not an easy place to get news and information to," Atin said.

Ghira heaved a sigh "Yes, I'm aware of the dangers. I suppose I can't blame the school for that. Though I will blame them for not sending a follow up confirmation. If I wasn't busy running this place, I'd go and complain to this 'Ozpin'."

"Then I'll go in your place, dear," Kali said, her hands resting on her lap.

Max and Atin looked at Kali in surprise, while Ghira rubbed at his chin with his right hand. After a moment's thought, he nodded. "Alright, then. That works just as well. And you will, after all, be travelling with members of Beacon Academy. Even if they are just TA's, they must be competent to work there."

Max and Atin shared a look, before Max said, "They trust us with sidearms, I guess."

"They even trust us enough to spar with the students. Sadly we don't have a copy of the exhibition match they had us do with some of the students." Atin quietly hoped Max didn't have the copy. He noticed Max's eye twitch a bit, but put it down to bad memories.

"The only issue would be that we do have just a few stops to make before we go back to Beacon. So, if you don't mind tagging along, we'd be more than happy to have her with us," Max finished up.

"Since we came all the way out here, Ozpin asked us to visit Haven Academy, and we do have to visit one other student's parents in Atlas." Atin pulled up an itinerary on his scroll and held it out for the Belladonna's to see.

After spending a moment looking through the list, Kali looked up suspiciously. "Why is there an appointment with the SDC on here? I thought you had to speak to a student's parents in Atlas."

Max coughed, looking at the table. "That is true, yes...specifically, the parents of one of your daughter's teammates…"

"Oh, so they work in the main building then?"

"Yes, they do work in the main building. On the top floor. In the biggest office. Probably looking down on the rest of us from a throne made of money," Atin said.

Ghira raised an eyebrow. "Someone on the board, then?" he asked, his voice taking on a bit of an edge as he reached a conclusion.

"Might even say he is the board," Max answered.

"Oh for fuck's sake, enough beating around the bush. Jacques Schnee. Head of the SDC. Your daughter works with Weiss. His kid. No, they haven't killed each other, yes they are friends." Atin sighed in exasperation.

"Oh..." said the Belladonna's in unison.

* * *

"Soooo, why are we walking through the bandit infested woods with a cart labeled 'Winchester's Mobile Banking Service'?" asked Kali.

"Because we are trying to attract the attention of some rather stupid bandits, so I opted to throw subtlety to the curb," Atin said, pulling the cart behind himself, straining as the wheels got stuck in yet another rut.

"I suppose I should have been a bit more direct with my question. Why are we trying to get mugged?"

"We'll explain that as we go along. Probably," Max said, yawning.

"If we can. You're gonna learn a lot of things today. Mostly about us. Some about the world. And quite a bit about why shadowy cabals running the world is a _terrible_ idea," Atin said.

A deafening silence was the only response the duo received.

A few miles down the road in a clearing, a group of six emerged from the surrounding tree line. "A traveling bank, huh? Can we make a withdrawal for say, all the money you got?" The one in the middle of the road asked, a wide grin on his face.

"Oh my god, it took you long enough. What kind of shit bandits are you? We've been on this road for, like, a week. WIth a cart labeled 'Mobile Bank.' What's a guy gotta do to get mugged around here?" Atin asked, throwing the cart handles down.

Max perked up, looking at the man in front of the group. "Oh, hey, you work for Raven, yeah?" he asked, walking up and throwing an arm around the now very confused bandit's shoulders.

The rest of the bandits were unsure as to whether or not they should keep their weapons aimed at the traveling bank or let them loose. "What?" the blonde haired man asked, trying to process the current situation.

"Okay, let me try, Max. I'll go slow for you, stupid. Do. You." Here, Atin gestured at the group of thugs. "Work. For. Raven?" Atin asked, slowly and clearly enunciating each word.

Half of the bandits were now certain they should be aiming their weapons at Atin, at the least, while the other half were still somewhat confused. Max's right hand lowered down to the pistol at his hip while this was happening. "I apologize for him. It's been a long week and he's just gotten so sick of that cart, it's making him a tad touchier than usual."

"It's not the cart and you know it. It's the fact these morons are terrible bandits, and Raven can do much better." Atin swept an arm at the group, turning his body side on, slowly undoing the strap on his holster.

Max sighed a bit, as the two of the three remaining bandits had swung their weapons back up to aim at Atin. "Atin, please remember, we do have Kali to worry about in this scenario." Max then suddenly constricted his left arm around the final bandit's neck, snapping his pistol up to the bandit's temple. He silently thanked Qrow for the lessons he'd literally beaten into the T.A.s over the last handful of months. "As for the rest of you, I'm more than willing to bet that you don't have aura. And if you do, well...I wonder how good it is at stopping forty-five calibre at point blank." Max shifted the bandit to shield himself now.

Atin simply shook his head. "Awful. Bandits. Now hurry up and take us to your boss. If you're lucky, I'll teach you how to properly rob someone, too. Now chop-chop. Also, don't bother with names. You're Bandit," he gestured at the man held captive by Max. "The rest of you are Bandits two through six, going left from to right. Any questions?" Atin began walking past them, pulling a very confused Khali with him.

"Now, in an effort to be somewhat civil, you can have the things in the cart, if you'd like. Some money, bit of food supplies. Think there's even a blanket or two," Max added. "All you have to do is take us to your current setup, let us meet Raven, then we all go our merry ways after we've discussed a few things with your tribe's leader. Easy. Simple. And no one has to really get hurt."

"And despite my abrasive personality, I really don't want to kill anyone. So please, just lead the way," Atin said.

The very confused bandits complied, all of them wearing looks of vague shock on theirs faces, except the one Max had taken hostage. He just smiled to himself, eager for these fools to die at the hands of his boss.

* * *

"Why would you idiots _actually_ bring them here?" shouted Vernal, glaring at the bandits who had escorted the three strangers to their camp.

Atin rolled his eyes "Because they are very bad at their job, that's why. I did tell them a few tips, but no idea if they stuck. I'm gonna go talk to your boss." Atin began moving forward before one of Vernals gun chakrams was aimed squarely at his face. "Okay, maybe I won't go see your boss. Eeesh, touchy."

Max then strolled up, but as Vernal raised her second weapon, Max grabbed her wrist, bringing the weapon up to inspect it. After a few moments of silence of Max glaring at it, he shifted his glare to Vernal. "This weapon offends my inner sensibilities on so many levels, young lady. What in the actual fuck were you thinking when you made these?" He let the wrist, and the weapon, drop, disgust clear on his face. "At least Bandit's knife strapped to the revolver handle made sense, damn it!"

"Please don't make this worse for me?" Bandit meekly asked.

Max shook his head, rubbing at his forehead. "I just...I can't. I cannot even begin to describe how much I hate this thing, Vernal. I don't know where to begin."

A sudden crack echoed through the encampment as a short laser burst burned a neat hole through Max's head. Vernal calmly turned her head towards Atin. "How did he know my name, and who are you? Also, any other wiseass want to comment on my weapon design?" she asked.

"Really, you shot him for that? I feel you may need to work on your ability to take constructive criticism," Atin said.

Vernal took a deep breath, exhaling angrily. "The only reason I haven't shot you is because I won't get any answers if I do. Judging from her shocked expression, the Faunus doesn't know anything. Also, not even a tear for your partner? If you live through my questions, you might just get to join us." Vernal's fist came from nowhere, crashing into the side of Atin's head, before everything went dark.

Atin opened his eyes moments later, before the bright light of the sun forced him to quickly close them again. "Kali, you there? How long was I out? Also, can you maybe turn the sun down? It's making the headache worse."

Atin felt burning pain on his cheek. "Your friend is dead, you've gotten us captured by bandits, and you make _jokes?_ Kali asked, the barely suppressed rage clear in her voice.

Atin slowly sat up, rubbing his cheek. "Okay, when you put it like that, I deserve that. So to clear a few things up, in order of importance. Max will be fine in like, an hour give or take. Dunno how long I was out. There is an excellent reason for getting captured, which I cannot disclose at the moment, and lastly, humor is my coping mechanism. Hell, threats of severe physical violence make me giggle uncontrollably. My shrink doesn't get it, and neither do I." Atin spoke quickly, hoping to avoid another slap.

She stared at Atin open-mouthed, before slowly her jaw. "Okay, I'll start from the top. Please explain to me how your friend is going to be fine when you, me, and this entire camp saw him get a hole burned through his head?" Kali asked.

"You will literally not believe me until you see it. Your daughter and the rest of her team certainly didn't. Please don't slap me again. Please. Getting knocked out really hurts." Atin covered his head, hoping to forestall violence.

Kali smacked him on the top of his head with her fist, making sure to extend a knuckle.

"OW. What did I just ask?" Atin complained.

"You said not to slap you. I didn't. Now stop joking around and answer my question, or I'll show how I keep Ghira under control," Kali threatened.

"Okay, I wasn't joking around. Fine. Fine. But no hitting, slapping, or causing me bodily harm when you don't believe me. Max and I, as of yet, have not encountered anything that kills us permanently. We bleed, we feel pain, we die. And then an hour later, we come back. Perfectly fine, like nothing ever happened. We have been eaten, shot, stabbed, decapitated via shotgun, and literally worked to death. A neat little hole in his skull will be gone, and he will appear whole and healthy before us. At which point, we will talk to the boss of this place, and convince her to rob a vault for us. We need what's in that vault to keep your daughter out of trouble. Well, more trouble anyway." Atin looked her in the eyes, simply waiting for her response.

Kali's eyes stared right back, looking for signs of lying. When she found none, she sighed, leaning back against the cage bars. "Okay. One hour, right? If Max isn't magically alive in an hour, I'm punching you."

"That is remarkably fair, given the day we've put you through. I'm gonna go sleep off getting sucker punched." Atin lay down in the flimsy cage, appalled at the shoddy craftsmanship. "Terrible bandits…" He muttered under his breath before drifting off to sleep.

An hour later, he and Kali were both startled awake by a _SCHLORPOP_ and Max was suddenly standing right outside the cage, unharmed and good as new. "Atin, I'm taking her gun," Max deadpanned, looking at the rather shitty looking cage.

"Oh good, you're back. Also, I can't believe that worked. You showing up outside the cage I mean. Get me out of here, Miss Belladonna is mean! She kept hitting me." Atin grabbed the bars, gazing at Max beseechingly.

Max pulled out his pistol, checking the chamber. "Should I shoot the chain?" he asked, ignoring Atin's sarcastic plea.

"If you think it'll help, sure. But I'm pretty sure we can just… slide out sideways. Kali probably could." Atin gestured to the widely spaced bars. He looked around for a moment before gesturing to Kali in a 'go ahead' motion.

Kali stared at Max, outside the cage, making casual conversation as if he hadn't been summarily executed an hour beforehand. "You're not dead…" She trailed off weakly, her worldview abruptly altered.

Atin took a moment to reflect. "You know Max, the fact that people take this as well they have is actually quite remarkable. We haven't been accused of witchcraft, demon deals, warpcraft, zombiehood, ghostly-ness, etc."

"It could be worse," Max replied. "We could have ended up in something like Forty-K."

"The inquisition might have stopped somewhere around the 100,000,000,000 time. Anyway, let's go see a Maiden about a Vault." Atin tried to force his way through a gap in the bars before getting stuck. "A little help Max?"

Max rolled his eyes, holstering his gun and grabbing Atin by the wrists. "Alright, let's try to get you out of there." With some effort, Atin was eventually free of the bars. "What about you, Kali? You coming with or staying in the relative safety and comfort of these bars?"

"If it means getting some actual answers, I'm coming with you. Especially if Atin was telling the truth about it helping my daughter." Kali slid out of the cage with considerably less effort than Atin.

They made their way around the back side of the tents, eventually reaching a slightly open flap at the rear of Raven's tent. "I would say they need to guard the tent better, but Raven can take care of herself just fine." Atin strolled forward, throwing open the rear flap. As he pushed the flap aside he boldly declared, "Don't kill me, it will make this take way longer!" Sitting at the low table was Vernal and Raven, Vernal raising an eyebrow and one of her weapons at Atin.

"Kill him now and he'll just be back in an hour, with something snarky to say," Max added, walking in to stand beside Atin.

Kali slipped in behind the two, trying not to be noticed. Vernal just stared at Max, unable to believe her eyes. Raven turned around, quirking an eyebrow at Vernal. "Vernal, I thought you said you killed one of the prisoners. So why are they not only breaking into my tent, but there are three of them?"

"Yeah, hi, I'ma just cut in here for a moment. She killed me, it didn't stick, yadda yadda, you get the gist. Anyways, we need your unique abilities to acquire a certain item," Max cut in. Max waited a moment, realizing something. "Holy shit, I didn't puke!"

"Oh great, now we have to explain that, too, Max. Anyway, oh great bandit chief Raven, we need your help to knick something and piss Ozpin off. You in?" Atin deadpanned, unable to figure even in his own head if he was being sarcastic.

Raven glared at the three people in her tent. "Before I kill you, or help you, I want answers." She simply stated.

Max thought for a moment, then said, "Alright, ask some questions, we'll answer what we can."

"Why aren't you dead?" Vernal blurted out, seemingly put out by having been ignored.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware your name was Raven Branwen as well," Max said, raising an eyebrow at Vernal.

"I am curious about that actually. Vernal isn't one to make mistakes. It isn't a habit I tolerate in my subordinates," Raven said.

"We don't stay dead is the most accurate way to describe it. Technically my friend did die. He just… came back. Either of us dies, we come back one hour on the dot, right by the other guy. If both of us are dead, we come back by the last place one of us was alive. You can test if you want, but that'll really slow the whole Q&A down," Atin answered as quickly as he could.

"Do you work for Ozpin?" Raven asked, her hand drifting dangerously close to her sword.

"Define work for," Max answered.

"Do you do the kind of jobs that I did?" she asked simply.

"Oh, Christ, no! Look at us! We're only just barely in shape after your brother kicked our asses into shape over the last six months!" Max answered, gesturing at himself and Atin. "We're just teaching assistants at Beacon."

"However, we happen to have… gained access to quite a bit of information. Involving certain skeletons in his basement shall we say." Atin did his best to dance around words that would result in him vomiting.

"And just how did you 'gain access' to the information if you haven't at least done some work for him? After all, I know quite well just how close to the chest Ozpin plays everything." Raven followed up.

Max crossed his arms, thinking for a moment in silence. "How much of your worldview are you willing to change if we fully answer?" he asked.

"It certainly won't be the first time I've had that occur. Why don't you try me?"

"Ozpin isn't the only one with gifts. We, to an extent, can see the way world was, and the way it will be. You might think of us as Oracles. We can use the past to predict the future. That's how we know oh so very many things he doesn't like sharing. Such as certain queens and their pawns," Atin said, hoping he was convincing.

"Last question. Why should I help you?" She stared at them, her eyes cold and unflinching. Neither Atin nor Max was much afraid, given how little the threat of death actually meant to them.

"Because the pawns won't have much need for you if a certain shiny is with us, back in Beacon. They'll leave you alone, I can promise that much at least. You won't have to worry so much about running any longer and all you have to do is give us maybe a day of your time," Max answered.

"Plus you have the added benefit of pissing off Ozpin, and we won't tell your daughter where you are. Remember, you literally can't kill us to keep us quiet," Atin chimed in.

Surprisingly, Raven didn't unsheath her sword for a swing at the T.A.s. After a few moments of silence, with Kali tensed and Vernal nonchalantly leaning back, Raven spoke. "Okay, then. I'll help retrieve the Relic. Vernal's maiden powers are needed to open the vault, so she'll naturally have to accompany us." Raven picked up the cup in front of her, taking a sip of tea.

Atin began violently coughing before managing to sputter out, "Right, of course we need _Vernal's_ maiden powers to open the vault."

Kali, having sensed the mood had grown somewhat less tense, chose that moment to ask a question. "What do you mean by a 'Maiden?' I assume we aren't speaking literally here."

Raven stared at Max and Atin, her eyes sharpening slightly. "We'll explain later, Kali," Max replied. "For now, I think it best we three try to find a place to rest before we head off to Haven Academy tomorrow."

* * *

 **AN: Season six killed Max's desire to write, and I was busy graduating. We have since decided to begin truly bucking the rails, this chapter is the result.**


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